


svt.toomblr.com (Wishes)

by Joir3C



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Fae & Fairies, Fairies, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Imps - Freeform, M/M, Magic, Mermaids, Panic Attacks, References to Depression, Saytrs, Shapeshifting, Soonhoon - Freeform, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Tumblr Prompt, Vampires, Werewolves, Wizards
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2018-12-14 05:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 34,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11776164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joir3C/pseuds/Joir3C
Summary: Jihoon is an Imp. Soonyoung is a Fairy. The rest of seventeen are various mythical creatures as well. Between college, competitions, and Toomblr discourse, Jihoon and Soonyoung go on a coffee filled adventure to find out who they really are.Or, the story of the sun and the north star, and how they bring us inspiration to fulfill our own hopes and dreams.[TEMPORARY HIATUS]





	1. Soonyoung

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1568 words

"I just wanted to tell you that... Um... Well... I-I like you, Oppa."

Soonyoung sighed quietly. He didn't want to do this, but he didn't have much of a choice. The fairy circle he had sewn into the hem of his jacket warmed slightly, and Soonyoung took a look at her intentions.

He felt anger when he saw, flashing red around her, trickery and deceit. She was a wizard, he could tell from the light blue sheen to her skin. The baby blue of her skin and the harsh red of her intentions did not mix.

He controlled his facial expression and tone. "I'm sorry, but I can't be with you." He bowed and started to turn away from her.

She grabbed his arm harshly as he tried to leave, attempting to force her lips on his. Soonyoung's other fairy circle, one tattooed on each of his shoulder blades, heated up uncomfortably as his wings flipped out and he tried to fly away. He managed to break free after a tense moment, and he hovered about fifteen feet in the air, where she couldn't reach him. She drew her wand, and started chanting an incantation. Soonyoung was terrified, and did his best to fly away. He didn't get very far before he felt his wings hesitate, then fail. Damn wizard.

He took off as fast as he could, running in a dead sprint. She took off after him, but he managed to lose her by running into the lunchtime rush. His heart was racing as he plopped himself down on a bench behind a tree in the corner of the courtyard. This table was completely out of sight to most students, and Soonyoung mostly sat here when he needed to hide or have a secret meeting with his bff's.

Soonyoung's friends appeared after a few minutes. Soonyoung was used to their sudden appearances, considering that Junhui was a vampire, Wonwoo was a shapeshifter, Joshua was a wizard, and Seungcheol was a werewolf (werechihuahua more like), so they could all transform themselves into small animals or make themselves invisible. Jeonghan walked up like a normal creature would. He was a merman, so when he was on land he just had to walk everywhere.

As they all say at the table, Jeonghan asked the big question:

"Are you hiding or calling a meeting?"

Soonyoung sighed and looked at his pitiful lunchbox. He wasn't the best cook, so he wasn't too disappointed by the distraction. He looked at his friends' faces, expression glum.

"I had a run in with a wizard. She wanted to kiss me."

"Oh Soonyoung, that's awful," Joshua said sympathetically, though he was a wizard himself.

"I hate being a Fairy sometimes. Just because we can grant three wishes to every person who kisses us doesn't mean that people should take advantage of us! We have feelings too, and I hate being used like this."

Soonyoung pouted and started eating again. Unlike most of his friends, his Fairy status didn't earn him slurs for being different. But his friends didn't know what it was like to be taken advantage of so much! Words hurt, but so did actions. He wondered if Imps had it worse than fairies. They were basically dark fairies, but their wishes came with much harsher consequences and they had much less control.

Soonyoung had never met an Imp in real life (they were pretty rare) since a lot of them had been burned at the stake up until the last century due to their status as devil's spawn. It would be cool though, to have someone he could relate to and talk to here at school with him.

His friends gave him words of sympathy as he finally started to recover from the terror from before. Eventually they started talking about their classes. They went to Mythical University, a secondary education school for mythfolk. Mostly it was wizards, since they were more likely to mate with humans and were the fastest growing mythspecies. There were a handful of shapeshifters, mermaids, and satyrs, and besides that were the more rare werewolves, fairies, and imps.

Soonyoung had a dance showcase coming up. As a Fairy, he majored in the arts, specifically dance. When he did his dances, residual Fairy dust from his body would line the floor in fairy circles and create beautiful light illusions while he moved. He had choreographed a dance himself, and had studied ancient fairy spell theory for weeks so he could create this specific light manipulation spell.

The University has a showcase every winter for students of the Arts to show off their skills. Being a magical university, they had to incorporate species specific skills into their performances, and whoever came up with the most original piece per year got to CLEP out of a class for the next semester. While a lot of students entered because of the prize, Soonyoung was entering because of his passion for dance. Also, he knew that there were very few fairies in the showcase, and that his piece would probably win because if that.

Also the fact that he was doing a completely original choreography, spell, and idea in general.

But anyways. None of his friends were entering. They were all in the Arts program, but Jun and Jeonghan were more into acting and the rest had no desire to work their specie's gifts into their art. How would Seungcheol even be expected to make something original as a werewolf? Nearly impossible. He could make something original outside of his specie's gifts, but the nature of the school meant that your work HAD to relate to your species. It sucked.

Soonyoung had free time before his next class, so after his friends took off, he opened Toomblr. It was a blogging platform that he used to talk about school, dance, and fairy magic. Unfortunately, just like in real life, his virtual life was not free from discrimination and discourse.

He looked through his asks. A lot of them were from young dancers or fairies asking for advice. He loved these asks, it made him feel like his experiences wouldn't go to waste. All the assaults and struggles he'd been through he could use to help young people prepare themselves for the world and keep themselves safe.

However, there were always at least three asks in his box that had nothing to do with encouragement. In fact, their goal was the opposite.

"Fairy slut. You creatures just go around kissing everyone and working your magic on people. You're just heartbreakers who want to play with people's feelings."

"OMG, you say you're a dancer, but with cheeks that chubby? Lose some weight! You're a fairy, just wish it away"

"At least werewolves and mermaids change to blend in. You fairies always flaunt your wings around and act like some special snowflake. Put them away and stop asking for attention!"

Soonyoung cringed. Usually they were just species slurs, but today they also insulted his weight. He was on the lower end of a healthy BMI and he intended to keep it that way. He knew from when he was younger and had an insecure friend that starving yourself because you're a dancer doesn't fix anything. He deleted the second ask without responding.

However, the species slurs he always responded to. He wanted to set a good example of how to be polite but still not give up your pride. To the first one, he responded:

"Lol how could I be a heartbreaker when I've never even held hands with anyone? I and all the fairies I know have self respect, and would never lead someone on, on purpose. In fact, it's more of the opposite. People lead US on so they can get what they want from us, and we are the ones who end up hurt afterwards. Maybe take some time to actually know a fairy before you go around making assumptions about us. I would appreciate it."

The final ask, however, struck a chord within him and he ran a hand over his shoulder. This was something that he had been teased about for years, ever since he got tired of being bullied and got an imp to put a spell on his wings. The tattoo kept his wings concealed until he called them forth. It was shameful to him that he felt the need to hide his species, but sometimes the bullies had been really intense.

"Mythfolk do not control the way they look, any more than humans do. This post called out not just fairies, but mermaids and werewolves as well. Our bodies adapt to our surroundings during certain situations as a survival method. This is not by our choice. By making these statements, you are also making statements that sound like human supremacy. You would no more judge a caterpillar for crawling as you would a baby. These comments are not ok and while I will not tell you to get rid of your opinion, because that is your right, I would ask that you stop using your words to attack mythfolk. I did nothing to provoke you. Thank you in advance."

He closed his phone screen and picked up his bag. His next class was starting soon, and he didn't want to be late. He knew, though, that while his body would be present during class, his mind would not be.


	2. Jihoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1541 words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOONYOUNG'S URL CHANGED FROM naega-hosh TO naega-hashbrowns

"Incubus".

"Devil's spawn."

"I know this is a species inclusive school but I didn't realize there would be an IMP here."

"Shush you guys, what if he hears us? He grants wishes, you know. What if he wishes we were dead or something? I wouldn't put it past him."

Jihoon kept his face blank as he walked towards his next class. He was a high school senior, and though he was technically in a high school university program at Mythical University, he still had two classes at Pledis High. Chemistry and art. Though he wasn't allowed to actually DO art here, because of his species.

It wasn't like he was going to draw a demonic spell. Those were so last century. Imps might have been connected to the devil at one point, but they'd broken away from that stuff a long time ago. Now they used spell circles that they created and drew themselves, nothing voodoo or black magic about it at all. But he still wasn't allowed to have a pencil or paper while he was at school.

It didn't help that now he was 18. The whole 'granting wishes' thing was only true when it was for someone he'd had sex with. He was absolutely disgusted at the thought, but creatures of all genders, ages, and species were approaching him now that he was of 'legal age'. But of course none of these high schoolers knew anything because Imp Genetics and Powers was too mature of a subject for minors, so they just assumed that Jihoon was going to cast spells on them whenever he felt like it and make horrible wishes. Like, no.

He heard a few more people whisper "incubus" as he passed. The whole sex thing has resulted in slurs like this, people calling him prostitute and accusing him of using magic to get into people's pants. He was still a confused teen! He only just turned 18! For fucks sake, give him some peace!

He couldn't wait until this year was over. University wasn't much better than high school, but at least most people were educated. And they didn't have rich parents complaining about interspecies education and trying to get him kicked out.

After his art (nap) class, he walked back to his parent's house. He worked part time at a tattoo shop (people loved getting spells tattooed on them, even though Jihoon kept telling them that they didn't have any power without an imp or fairy lover powering them up), so he could probably move out with all the money he had saved up, but he was scared.

He would never admit it to save his life, but he hadn't had much exposure to the world growing up. His parents had kept him in an imp only elementary school, and had homeschooled him in middle school to shelter him from bullying. High school, however, he was thrown into chaos. And he wasn't sure he felt ready to completely move away from the shelter that was his parents.

When he got home, he did his best to put on a smile. He was glad there weren't any emotion reading spells for imps yet, but he knew there were some intention reading spells and if his parents were wondering WHY he was rushing into his room and locking the door they might find out.

He had a tough exterior, a fluffy interior, and his at-home personality was somewhere in between. He was small for an imp, and though his hair and wings were black (like his soul, he tried telling his parents), they still insisted on a creamy pink room with poufy marshmallowy blankets and plenty of windows for a soft natural lighting. He was an imp, not a fairy, and they knew that because SO WERE THEY, but there were sparkles on his curtains. He complained incessantly, but he secretly enjoyed the fluffy blankets and cream colored walls. Not the sparkles though. Never the sparkles.

He threw his school bag down next to his desk and reached under his bed. He had notebooks upon notebooks of musical compositions, and an all-inclusive spell book for imps. They were hidden behind classical gothic literature books, because even though his parents thought he was a bunny or a butterfly or something, his love for the arts wasn't exactly accepted. His parents were both scientists, who studied magical theory, so he felt pressured to follow their lead. They didn't want him doing something girly like art and music, but they also wouldn't let him learn imp magic. Too dangerous, they said.

Maybe it was because his older brother had been taken away five years ago for getting involved in demonic magic. He was 100% sure that was the reason, but he never pushed his parents. He just studied in secret- the non-demonic spells, of course- and composed music and did his best to work together the two. Ever since demonic spells were outlawed, imp magic had been severely diminished. Jihoon knew why it had been outlawed, but he wanted to create new spells to make up for the loss of so many traditional spells from his ancestors.

After getting out his notebooks and spell books, he put them in his bag under his art and chemistry textbooks and hurried downstairs. He grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter and waved at his mother as he rushed out of the house.

She was used to this; Jihoon had spent a lot of time going out to nature parks and other places. His parents assumed that he was doing biology and science experiments. Yeah right. He did go to parks, but he mostly went to libraries instead.

He opened the doors of the Mythical University Theory of Magic Library. He trotted up the stairs to the second story where they had comfy chairs and study rooms. He grabbed a few history books and textbooks off the shelves of the library and headed into room #1. He emptied out his bag, and stacked all the books up in order. He pulled open his notebook and the first textbook and started scribbling.

\----------------------------------------

He came out of his study trance an hour into his research when his phone pinged. He stiffened at first; his phone only pinged for two things: his parent’s texting him, or his favorite blog updating. Grabbing his phone, he opened up naega-hashbrowns.toomblr.com and saw that several asks had been answered. Jihoon had found himself to be one of the only 3 imp bloggers on the site, so it was difficult to talk about imp issues on there. However, he had found a high quality fairy blog that talked about a lot of the same issues. This blogger, known as Hoshi, was also a dancer, and for Jihoon, a person interested in the arts, it was awesome to find someone who shared his interests. Discourse and music.

Jihoon saw that there had been two anon hate messages that Hoshi replied to, and he was impressed by how calmly Hoshi had replied to them. Jihoon would have gone crazy, insulting their parents, their ancestors, and their race. He snorted as he went to 'Messages' and typed up a few sentences.

From: woozu-woozi  
To: naega-hashbrowns  
Congrats on not roasting the haters today. I would have had at them. How have you been lately?

He got a reply a few minutes later.

From: naega-hashbrowns  
To: woozu-woozi  
Lol thanks! I try to set a good example and not hate the haters. I'm actually in class right now. What about you?

From: woozu-woozi  
To: naega-hashbrowns  
At the library. Doing some research on spell theory. Also on Chopin and the Nocturnes. Lol what class are you in?

From: naega-hashbrowns  
To: woozu-woozi  
Math. Can't remember what kind tho XD my mind has been elsewhere. I got some very personal hate messages today that I didn't post.

From: woozu-woozi  
To: naega-hashbrowns  
Who? I'll fight them

From: naega-hashbrowns  
To: woozu-woozi  
Lol I don't know they were anon

From: woozu-woozi  
To: naega-hashbrowns  
Cowards. I wonder if there's a spell that can track their computer even tho they're anon

From: naega-hashbrowns  
To: woozu-woozi  
Lol it's called computer science. Thanks though, I appreciate your support <3

From: woozu-woozi  
To: naega-hashbrowns  
Np. Focus on ur schoolwork now, I know maths aren't ur forte

From: naega-hashbrowns  
To: woozu-woozi  
Nooo I was happy being distracted

From: woozu-woozi  
To: naega-hashbrowns  
I'm still doing research. Byeeeee

Jihoon, known as Woozi, and Hoshi had bonded over mutual anon hate and were mutuals on Toomblr. It was a very pressure-free friendship and Jihoon was glad there was SOMEONE who didn't think he was some slut. He heard his phone ping at him, notifying him of Hoshi messaging him, but he didn't look at his phone.

He needed to work on something special today. Though his university program- called early enrollment- he was given the chance to perform in their showcase that winter. If he won, instead of CLEPing out of a college level class of his choice, he could choose to graduate high school early and begin full enrollment. He wanted to get out of high school SO BAD. He needed to do well on this.

This was his way out, and he was certain that he would succeed.


	3. Woozi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2200 words

He was so close. He was SO CLOSE. He could feel it, on the verge of his mind, the solution that would join his original composition and original imp spell. There was a connection, he knew it because he CREATED both pieces, but it was just out of reach. He needed coffee. Caffeine usually helped him focus.

He packed up his bag and headed down to the Sunbucks shop in the library lobby. He nodded to the barista on duty, and she smiled.

"Your usual?"

He winced inside. He needed to curb his caffeine addiction. They knew him too well here.

"Today I'll have the Remember Me Knot special. I'm working on a project, and the last piece is just out of reach..."

She smiled, and walked to the back. Returning with his coffee, she set it down on the counter. He reached for it, and she wagged a finger at him.

"Wait just a second, I have a little something-something that might help."

She winked and ducked behind the counter, pulling out a shaker labeled 'Special Sunshine Salt". Jihoon quirked an eyebrow at her, and she giggled.

"Whipped this up this weekend. Only for my favorite customers. Free of charge. Wanna try?"

He mulled over it for a moment, then nodded. The barista's name was Fae, and while she wasn't mythfolk, she could work some type of magic. If she offered, he would accept.

He pulled a paper out of his pocket as she dusted the top of his coffee with her salt. The paper contained a spell on it, a special imp circle that he had created. The description written under it said 'Feels like Home" and Fae beamed. Sunbucks was a special coffee shop, and Fae never accepted cash from her favorites. This would do, and if the look on her face was telling, his next couple of drinks would be free. He picked up his coffee and headed out.

Instead of going home, he decided to swing by the Music Department at Mythical University. He wanted to mess around with his piece one last time, with some special sunshine, before he called it a night.  
Once he arrived, the last class of the day was getting out. He slipped into one of the private practice booths, the one with the piano, guitar, and drums, and set his stuff down. He breathed in, then out, took a last sip of his coffee, and pulled the piano bench back. Setting his spell and sheet music on the music desk, he then placed his fingers in the keys, and willed his dark fairy dust to the tips of his fingers.

He could feel it. The swirls and designs of the imp circle, the movements of his hands on the piano, they were so close.

His eyes were closed as he visualized the two pieces coming together. Something was missing, the final but that would bind the two together and activate the magic. Something, so far, yet... His mind's eye felt pulled to his right. Pausing, he opened his eyes and stared ahead. He could hear the haunting tune, teasing him for being so slow. As if on its own, his head started to turn. The chords became louder, and he could finally see. See the missing piece.

The guitar. Propped up against the wall. He could see in his mind the way his hands would move over the strings, strumming and creating chords. The movements, the lingering dust that would be left behind, would overlap his spell and music to make them more powerful, bind them together, create a musical masterpiece. He let out a shaky breath, and reached for the guitar.

Pulling out his MP3 player, (MP3 short for Magic Projection 3, the latest prototype for recording and projecting spells, mostly used by wizards but also used by fairies and imps) he hit record and started to play the guitar, letting his emotions guide him and using his mind's eye to visualize the spell. Once he recorded the guitar part, he hit stop and set the guitar down. Turning to the piano, he got ready to record the second piece.

This was a rough recording, nowhere near the professional studio outcome he would create next week, but he needed to know how it sounded together. He needed to make sure he was right, and he needed to have it recorded because his mind was moving so fast he wouldn't be able to write it all down.

Once he had both piano and guitar recorded, he sat back. The imp circle would be created with dance, activating the magic inside the recordings, when the time came. He had broken through his writer's block, his musician's block, and just in time. It was after six, and dinner was always at seven. His mother would kill him if he was late.

He would have to swing by Sunbucks next week and thank Fae for the special sunshine salt. He wasn't sure if it was the salt, his on creative genius, or some combination of both that finally drew the stray thoughts back into his head, but he felt very awake and focused.

He waved at the security guard as he left, feeling bad that the man had had to wait so long for him to leave so he could lock up. But he didn't regret staying so late. This kind of breakthrough this early on would really speed up the process of preparing for the showcase, and he would have plenty of time to practice and touch up on it before he had to perform.

As he walked home, he pulled his phone out and checked his message from Hoshi. It had been hours since he'd last messaged Jihoon, but Jihoon wanted to make sure he hadn't missed something important.

From: naega-hashbrowns  
To: woozu-woozi  
Don't leave meee D: but if you do, good luck on the research! Let me know if you find anything cool!

Jihoon smiled and put his phone away. It wasn't anything he had to reply to now. As he got closer to his house, he could see the lights on in the dining room. He checked his watch; he had three minutes  
to get in there. He took off at a sprint.

He slid into his seat right as his father declared it time to eat. Usually, if he was late, they didn't just eat without him, they would put his plate away and scold him on the importance of family dinners, and make him sit through without eating. He had to wait until after they finished eating before he got to start.

His mother gave him a look across the table.

"You know, it was awful close tonight. It would be nice if you could be here early sometime to help set the table."

He smiled nervously, hoping he wouldn't get roped into doing any more chores than he already had to do.

"Well, I figured that since I have chores after dinner, I could use some of the time before dinner to work on homework."

She sighed, but dropped the subject. Jihoon was glad, he didn't have any better excuse.

Dinner was quiet that night. His father was reading up on the scientific journal that was published that day, and his mother was scrolling through her phone responding to emails. Once Jihoon finished his food, he checked to see if his parents were done.

He cleared the table once they finished, and cleaned the kitchen. Making sure to put away leftovers for lunch tomorrow, he grabbed some cookies out of the pantry and headed up to his room.

He plugged his phone into the charger and plopped down on his bed. He opened Toomblr, and checked his page. There wasn't a whole lot of new stuff on his dash, since he only followed like five blogs, but his inbox had a couple of asks.

This wasn't too unusual, since he was an imp, he got lots of hate. There was usually one or two people who were curious about imps and their powers and history, people who weren't of his race but wanted to be informed. He appreciated those asks, since it was a reminder that not everyone was a discriminating exclusionist, but tonight there were asks the likes of which he'd never had before. They were asking about... The arts? He never posted much about his dancing or music on here, maybe once last year, so how come there were a bunch of asks about it?

He refreshed his dash again, making sure he was connected to his parent’s internet, and something new popped up.

naega-hashbrowns  
Shout-out to my favorite mutuals! Not that I pick favorites. I love all of you guys equally ^_^ But these blogs have a lot in common with me, so check them out!  
@werewolfinthechickencoups  
@mermencanhavelonghair  
@joshuwizard  
@jun-by-the-moon  
@wonwoesofshapeshifting  
@woozu-woozi  
@mingyunicorns  
@dk-is-short-for-d-ck  
@mermencanbedivastoo  
@chimpchumpchan  
@handsomehansol  
@the8-r-saytr

He let out a little laugh. He knew it wasn't REALLY a 'senpai noticed me' moment, since he and Hoshi were mutuals, and messaged each other a lot, but to be listed in Hoshi's top favorite blogs when he KNEW Hoshi followed at least 100 blogs made him glow inside.

He pulled up his messages and clicked on the first name there.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
So I'm one of your favorites hmm? ;)

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
If you read the post you would know that I don't pick favorites ;)

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
Yeah right you know I'm your #1

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Oh no u caught me lol yup ur my favorite ^_^

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
And just what makes me so special? I'd like to know what I did to have this honor bestowed upon me XD

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Hmm, let's see... Hmm... You know what? I can't think of anything. Maybe I should renounce you?

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
Guess what happened this afternoon

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Ooh what what

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
I was stuck with my music, but I broke through it and I made a rough recording of what it should sound like.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Can I hear it?

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
Yeah, but you can't tell or show anyone, it's for a contest and it's completely original.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
I pinky promise. This is so cool! I bet it's gonna be awesome.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
attch1.mp3

Jihoon waited nervously for a minute. He and Hoshi would always do this, Jihoon letting Hoshi be the first one to hear his music, Hoshi letting Jihoon be the first one to see his choreographies. They'd never met in person, so Jihoon knew what Hoshi looked like from his dance videos, but Hoshi had never seen Jihoon before. Jihoon knew that Hoshi would like his music, but he still got nervous for every first listen. Before he could think more about it, his phone pinged.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
WOWWWWWWWW THAT WAS AMAZINGGGGG UR SO TALENTED ITS SO BEAUTIFUL

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
Lol it's not all that yet, I still have to work on it. Like I said, it's a rough recording of what it should sound like. I still need to work in the spell, and maybe add some vocals, make a choreo...

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
WAIT VOCALS  
IVE NEVER HEARD YOUR VOICE  
WHAT DO YOU SOUND LIKE

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
Well, you'll just have to wait and find out lol

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
But I wanna know now... :(  
Did you say choreo earlier?

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
Yeah, choreo. I'm sure it'll be nothing compared to all the choreo you do, but I'm going to probably both sing and dance the spell.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
WOWWWWWWWW that's amazing I can't wait to hear (and see? Please?) The final product!!!  
What contest is this for?

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
It's a school competition, if I win I can graduate high school early.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
That's super cool! I have a school competition coming up too, but I'm in college. There's some prize but I don't care that much about it. I'm more interested in the good recommendations I'll get if I win.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
Wow, that's an interesting perspective to have. What kind of competition is it?

"JIHOON! COME HELP SWEEP THE LIVING ROOM!"

"UGH!!!" Jihoon got up and scrambled downstairs. His mom rarely asked him to sweep, since he took care of cleaning the kitchen after meals, but the ONE TIME she does, he's in the middle of a conversation with Hoshi. He swept the floor furiously, finishing in record breaking time, and dashed back to his room. Hoshi had replied.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
It's kind of everything, like singing and dancing and stuff. Kind of like a talent show I guess?  
Well, I have homework to do, so goodnight!

Jihoon sighed, the conversation was over now. He looked at the clock, almost 9. He pulled out his own homework and settled in at his desk. It would be a long night. He would wait to check the rest of Toomblr until morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for those curious, I type all my stories on my phone. Completely on my phone. So if there's any spelling or grammar issues, it's not because I'm stupid, it's because autocorrect is stupid. If you've enjoyed the story so far, leave kudos, subscribe, comment, and bookmark! <3  
> And for those of you wondering,  
> @werewolfinthechickencoups = scoups  
> @mermencanhavelonghair = jeonghan  
> @joshuwizard = joshua, obviously  
> @jun-by-the-moon = jun, obviously  
> @wonwoesofshapeshifting = wonwoo, obviously  
> @woozu-woozi = i shouldnt have to explain this one  
> @mingyunicorns = this one either  
> @dk-is-short-for-d-ck = its short for duck  
> @mermencanbedivastoo = seungkwan  
> @chimpchumpchan = dino/chan/michael jackson wannabe  
> @handsomehansol = its tru tho  
> @the8-r-saytr = it rhymes, dont judge me  
> @naega-hashbrowns = if you don't know this one by now then why are you reading this author's note?
> 
> Next chapter is titled Hoshi


	4. Hoshi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1365 words

Soonyoung woke up to his phone vibrating. He saw... was that?! 137 Toomblr notifications???

He opened the app and saw that he'd been tagged in several posts, and had an overwhelming amount of messages. Plus the reblogs of his favorite Toomblr accounts post.

Before he dived into the mess, he checked Woozi's Toomblr. He was ecstatic to see that all the blogs in his favorite blogs list we're now mutuals with Woozi!!! Some of those were his real life friends, too, so it was even better! He beamed at his phone.

The posts he'd been tagged in were from the blogs he'd tagged yesterday. They were mostly talking about how they'd become mutuals with him and the things they had in common. Woozi was the only one who hadn't made a post like that, but he wasn't really the type to. Soonyoung was just happy that he'd followed all the other blogs.

When Soonyoung got around to Chan's blog, @chimpchumpchan, he was surprised to see Woozi tagged in it as well. Chan had put in the post how cool it was to see his two favorite blogs were mutuals. Soonyoung hadn't realized that Chan had been mutuals with Woozi before, but he was delighted. It was a small world, the internet.

When he looked through his messages, he saw that all of his favorite mutuals had been messaging him, wondering if he was willing to make a group page with them. He was shocked, he knew that a lot of his mutuals followed each other, but it seemed after they had all been tagged together, they started messaging.

From what he could tell with a quick glance, all 12 of his favorite mutuals had experienced or had friends who experienced a lot of species discourse, in real life and on Toomblr. They wanted the group blog to be a place where they could be free of oppression, and maybe once they got to know each other better, a united front where they spoke out the truth of the matter and fought the discourse.

Soonyoung was overwhelmed with joy that these blogs, these friends, these people that he knew but didn't know, had asked him to be a part of this. It seemed that Seungcheol, the oldest one of his friends at college, was the one heading this up. Soonyoung immediately replied to the messages stating how EXCITED he was for this and that YES he would love to start a group page with them.

And thus, svt.toomblr.com was born.

Soonyoung had to rush to get to school, putting his phone on silent as soon as he joined the page. He had classes from 9 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon, so he'd have to wait until then to see what all the group page entailed.

His first class of the day was Contemporary Dance II, a required course for his dance major, and after that was Modern Dance. It was 12:30 by the time he finished those, and he had half an hour to grab lunch before Dance Conditioning.

He sat at the same table he had been at yesterday, and pulled out his phone. Toomblr had blown up with all the messages from his friends, and he had an influx of about 200 new followers from his friends' blogs. He opened the group page, where he saw there were 13 members.

He was confused for a moment, and then remembered that he hadn't actually read through all his messages thoroughly. After reading through Seungcheol's messages, he knew why the page was called Seventeen when there were only thirteen of them.

The answer was in tarot cards. Joshua, ever the old fashioned wizard, had mentioned how the tarot card 17, the Star, stood for inspiration and hope for the future. Soonyoung messaged Seungcheol back, telling him to let Joshua know that Soonyoung's Tumblr name, Hoshi, meant 'Star' in Japanese. It was an amazing coincidence, or maybe it was fate, that the tarot card 17, the Star, stood for everything they believed in, and that Hoshi, meaning Star, had accidentally started this all with an innocent Toomblr post.

By the time he turned his phone off, he had to run to his next class to make it on time. Well, it was a good way to warm himself up for dance conditioning, he supposed. He couldn't wait until he was done for the day. He felt extra inspired and knew he could find a way to work this into his dance routine for the upcoming competition. He really wanted to come up with something great, something impressive to show Woozi. He really wanted to match Woozi's artistic genius, and he knew that if he worked hard he could. He was going to ACE that competition!

\-------------------------------------------

Soonyoung's attitude persisted through his intense conditioning class, and through his math class. By the time he got to one of the studio dance rooms, his head was higher in the clouds than it had ever been. He turned on his music and did some warm ups and stretches. Just because he was eager to start didn't mean he could ignore his body.

He was using the University's theme song as the base for his dance, which was risky because it wasn't TECHNICALLY original BUT no one had ever done it before AND Soonyoung was going to remix the song with his own twist to it. He knew that the committee that would judge the performance would be a mix of older alumni and younger relatives of the School Board. He knew that using the University theme song would appeal to the older nostalgic judges, and the hip hop style remix and dance would appeal to the younger judges. He knew that if he wanted the school scholarships to hold next year, he wouldn't just have to get good grades, he would need recommendations from important people like the judges of this competition. He would take all the classes he had to, to get his degree and earn the right to be a professional dancer, it wasn't the classes that stood in his way. His parents did everything they could to pay for his college, but since they were in performing arts themselves, money could be tight. He would do his best to ease the burden away from them and show the world that dancers we're worthy of scholarships and jobs.

He set up his camcorder and hit record. When the song came on, he immersed himself in the music, freestyling first to really feel and bond with the song in its original form. He wanted to make sure he honored the original theme song and capture not only what it stood for, but also what HE stood for. He could feel the love and excitement from this morning, from creating a group with his friends, to stand up against the injustices done to mythfolk, and let it flow out into the air to mingle with the song.

Slowly, the song ended, and Soonyoung stilled. He stared into the mirror, breathing hard. Soon he would remix the song, finding a way to not just visibly add his feelings to the song, but audibly as well. This part of the spell work was most tricky; mixing different components of the same spell in a multi-dimensional fairy sphere.

He wondered how Woozi did it all, the singing, dancing, composing, the lyrics... Well, he DID know how Woozi did it all because Soonyoung was doing it too, but it came so fast and natural to Woozi. Soonyoung would be jealous if they were competing against each other, but since Woozi was probably competing in a high school competition, Soonyoung felt more admiration and was glad they weren't competing against each other. He'd never seen or heard Woozi's dancing or singing, but he knew it would be on par with his compositions.

Soonyoung watched the recording of himself from a moment ago, dancing to the original school theme song, and saw how he had unconsciously created fairy circles during the song. He didn't know what they meant just yet, but he was sure that when he found out, it would be stunning.


	5. Seventeen or Thirteen?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1634 words

Jihoon hadn't expected for Hoshi's post to gain him so much popularity, but he had gone from a measly 3 followers to 300+ followers overnight. It turns out, the other blogs that Hoshi had tagged we're among the new followers, and Jihoon felt he had no choice to follow them back.

After checking out their blogs, it felt like less of an obligation and more of a 'these guys are actually interestin' kind of follow-back. Actually, one of them he had been mutuals with before, @cimpchumpchan. Chan was one of the two other imp blogs on Toomblr besides himself, and Jihoon enjoyed watching his choreography videos from time to time. He could see why he was one of Hoshi's favorite blogs, this kid was seriously good at dancing.

The other blogs were pretty cool, too; most of them were various kinds of mythfolk, from what he could gather, and they were all interested in either singing, dancing, composing, writing, or acting. Basically, they were all into the creative arts.

Jihoon's inbox started to flood shortly after he followed the blogs back. They were all from the follow-backs (the name he came up with for the other people on Hoshi's post), and they were mostly just asking about him, how he met Hoshi, and... If he wanted to mod a blog with them?

He hesitated. He didn't have many friends, online or off. He wasn't antisocial, he'd just been the victim of so much bullying that it was hard for him to jump into stuff quickly. Like owning a blog with twelve guys, ten of which he didn't know.

Well, Hoshi liked them all, right? And Jihoon already knew Chan, since they'd been mutuals since the first day Jihoon joined Toomblr. And the guy who would be heading up the blog said it would be to fight against discrimination and be super inclusive and non-judgemental. He typed out a short message 

To: werewolvesinthechickencoups  
From: woozu-woozi  
I would love to be a part of the blog. Thank you for asking me.

He hit send, and stared at the message for a minute. It seemed rigid, but he didn't know how he could have worded it better. Wow, for someone who wrote song lyrics on a daily basis, he wasn't good at using his words. He received a reply in the form of an invitation to the blog. His finger hovered for a second, then clicked.

The blog. svt.toomblr.com. The title: 'Inspiration to fulfill our own hopes and dreams'. Jihoon felt the corners of his mouth turn up as he read the title. @werewolvesinthechickencoups had told him that even though there were only 13 blog members, they were going to name the blog svt (short for seventeen) because the tarot card 17, the Star, stood for hope and inspiration. He didn't have long to look, however, before his messages pinged.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: werewolvesinthechickencoups  
I think it'd be great if everyone did a brief introduction post here. Your name (or a nickname), and what you usually blog about, and anything interesting about yourself. If you want to include any background you have with discrimination and harassment, you can, but you don't have to. Not everyone is comfortable opening up online.

Jihoon mulled over this. The point of the group was to combat segregation, discrimination, and prejudice. While he hated admitting his weaker moments online, it would be crucial that he share his experiences if the blog would take effect the way they wanted it to.

He opened a Word document and started typing. He wanted to make sure he proofread this post before he put it out there.

'My name is Woozi. I'm and imp, and a lot of stuff I blog about has to do with imp discourse, and educating those who want to learn about who imps are so that we aren't treated like animals or "Devil's Spawn". This is something that I am passionate about, not just because of it's affects on my species, but on myself as well.

I know first-hand how regular humans can have prejudice and stereotypes for mythfolk. My parents did their best to shelter me from it by sending me to an Imps-Only elementary school, and homeschooling me in middle school. After some family drama, they couldn't teach me at home anymore and now I go to a mixed species high school. I'm a senior now, so I don't have to be here for much longer, but I hear comments everyday about how I must be a slut. Calling me Incubus. Since Imp studies are considered too mature for high schoolers, all they usually know about my species is that we grant wishes, come from the devil, and have sex. This isn't true.

Imps are dark fairies. We come from the same place as fairies, have the same history. Out magics are just activated differently. Imps can cast spells and create Imp circles, the same way fairies can. We have wings. Our ancestors used dark magic, but in modern times imps only use imp spells that are considered non-demonic. We are not demons.

My goal on Toomblr is to not just get rid of the discourse, but to educate all beings, whether mythfolk or not, on all beings, so that there will be no need or reason for all this prejudice. I have experienced harassment and discrimination for things that are not just my race, either, and someday I would like to address those issues as well. Not only species, but things such as race, gender, sexuality, and economic status are NOT reasons to judge someone or harass them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.i hope we get along well.'

Jihoon looked it over. @werewolvesinthechickencoups had mentioned that all the people in this group had faced prejudice and discrimination, and he knew that most of them were mythfolk, but was he assuming too much by addressing all these issues? What if they were all white, straight, and rich?

He shook his head. Hoshi was someone who made friends with everyone, and from what Jihoon could tell, he hated discrimination. Even if they were all white, straight, and rich, they had all expressed that they would not tolerate discrimination any more than Hoshi would. And if Jihoon was so against discrimination, he wouldn't ignore these people because they were straight white rich men. Besides, he KNEW They weren't all white, straight, and rich, because if he remembered right @mermencanhavelonghair had posted some money saving tips, and @joshuwizard had posted something about his mixed racial lineage. These were people who knew what it felt like to be judged, and would refrain from judging him.

He copied, pasted, and hit 'Post'.

He didn't wait around to see their reactions, he had wasted WAY too much time and he still had to get to school in time for Chemistry.

Walking through the halls that day, he did his best to breathe deep, think about the inspiration to fulfill his own hopes and dreams, and ignore the haters. He didn't need that right now. He didn't need that ever, but especially not now, after he just spilled a giant rant to his new online acquaintances and didn't have time to see if they hated him or not.

He kept his head down in Chemistry, not able to take notes since he wasn't allowed to write at school, and tried to pull his phone out subtly so he could check Toomblr when the teacher wasn't looking. The teacher didn't notice, but a couple of the kids across the room from him did, and while they weren't in the pack of bullies, he still felt self consious, worried that they would call him out. He accidentally made eye contact with one of them, and before he could look away, the other boy winked and pulled out his own phone. Jihoon watched for a moment as the boy scrolled up and down on his phone, paying no attention to the teacher that was headed his way. Jihoon knew to put his phone back, but this boy wasn't going to be able to hide his in time if he didn't hurry.

Jihoon felt some sort of obligation to let the boy know. Thinking quick, he grabbed a rubber band from his non-pencil case and made it into a finger gun. He shot it off, just in time, and thwacked the boy on the ankle while the teacher was one desk away. The boy managed to hide his phone just in time, masking his inattention by telling the teacher he dropped his rubber band. After the boy picked it up, the teacher gave him a stern glance and walked back towards the front. The boy turned towards Jihoon, with an eyebrow raised and a grin. He made a finger gun and mimicked shooting a rubber band at Jihoon. Jihoon's face started to blanche, and he looked away before the teacher could connect the boy to him. He didn't want trouble.

A few minutes later, he managed to get Toomblr opened and saw a group chat, started by @dk-is-short-for-d-ck. The first message?

To: everyone  
From: dk-is-short-for-d-ck  
Wow almost got caught on Toomblr in Chemistry lol. Good thing a classmate shot me with a rubber band to let me know the teacher was coming!

Jihoon shoved his phone back in his bag as the bell rang, and he hurried to get to his art (nap) class. It was way to strange of a coincidence that the dk person had just described the exact situation that Jihoon had been in, at exactly the right time. It was possible that dk was the boy in Jihoon's class, but he didn't want to make assumptions until he knew more about dk and knew for sure. For now, he had to wait.


	6. Inspiration to Fulfill Our Own Hopes and Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2097 words

By the time Soonyoung got around to checking Toomblr again, he was the last person to post his brief introduction on the group page. He took a minute to read through everyone else's before he did his own. While he knew all of them had faced some tough stuff, they had never gone into too much detail about who they were or what exactly they had been through.

The most recent to post was @jun-by-the-moon. Hoshi decided to start there, and work his way backwards. They all seemed pretty long, so he settled himself into the couch in the commons room of his dorm and got ready for the emotional shitstorm he was sure he was going to feel. He was going to read EVERY LAST ONE before he even thought about starting his own, wanting to really get a feel for what his friends had been through.

jun-by-the-moon  
My name is Jun. I am originally from China. I blog a lot of stuff like dramas, acting, musicals, and discourse. I am a vampire, so while acting is my passion, I find it hard to get cast in even minor roles. I often face an onslaught of slurs wherever I go. I believe that this should change. Not only am I a Chinese vampire, I also am LGBTQ+. These things have all lead to me hiding who I am everywhere except for online. Some of my hobbies are acting and martial arts.

\-------------------------------

wonwoesofashapeshifter  
My name is Wonwoo. I mostly blog about song and rap lyrics. I really enjoy singing and rapping. I am a shapeshifter, so I get a lot of strange looks from people when they realize that I have to ingest something of an object to transform into it, or the blood of a being if I am transforming into a being. I hunted and fished with my family when I was younger, so I have almost always had the ability to transform into forest animals and fish, but if I want to transform into something new, it can be painful both mentally and physically. Like vampires, sometimes I get called 'blood-sucker', but mostly people avoid me because they see me as dishonest. Many people are uneducated and believe that shapeshifter can change their hair, eyes, or skin anytime we wish. We cannot. Only the most elite shapeshifters can do anything less than a full body transformation, and even then we keep our original characteristics, such as hair, skin, and eye color. I would simply like to educate people on these facts, because they would live in a lot less fear that way.

\------------------------------

mingyunicorns  
My name is Mingyu. While I am human, I have still faced a lot of hard times because of who I am. I come from a poor family, and have given up a lot to support them. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I have also felt a lot of discrimination and harassment for my identity as bisexual. I love rapping, my family, and cute animals.

\------------------------------

mermencanbedivastoo  
My name is Seungkwan! I am a merman, and a lot of the times I am emasculated because of it. I really enjoy singing and men and fashion, and since people mostly think of merfolk as 'mermaids' a lot of the times people question who I am. Especially since we are only half humanoid, and mermen don't have the same man parts that humans have. I mostly blog fashion and song lyrics, and while I like to create a safe space on my personal blog for my followers, I am extremely excited to take part in a group like this! Together we will vanquish discrimination!

\------------------------------

handsomehansol  
My name is Vernon. I am an abnormality no matter where you look. I am Asian American. I am half fairy half wizard. I am queer (aka confused, according to my uncle). A lot for people at school don't like me because I look like a typical white, rich, straight human, when really I am a biracial, middle class, queer half blood. No one bothers to get to know me before making assumptions about who I am. Stereotypes go both ways, and as someone who has one foot in every door, I want to do my best to make the world a friendlier place.

\------------------------------

chimpchumpchan  
My name is Chan! I blog mostly about dancing and music, and sometimes about Imp discourse. I do my best to just passionately follow my dreams of becoming a professional dancer and not worry about what other people think. It can get really hard sometimes, though, when it seems like you are the only one in the world who is an Imp and everyone seems to be against you. I hope that we, as a group, can do our best to make the world a safe place for people of all kinds to follow their dreams.

\------------------------------

dk-is-short-for-d-ck  
My name is Seokmin, but call me DK! I blog a lot of memes and song lyrics. I am a human, through and through. I mostly get picked on because of the fact that I am into a lot of things that people say are 'girl' things. So what if I paint my nails sometimes or wear a skirt to school every now and then, right? I believe that gender roles can be really stupid and we shouldn't hold ourselves so rigidly in place, following gender specific rules and making what we are more important than who we are.

\------------------------------

joshuwizard  
My name is Joshua. I blog a lot of Bible verses and song lyrics. I am a wizard. A lot of the struggles I deal with have to do with the fact that I am a 'Devil's Child' but I am a Child of God. I get shunned from every church I go to, and can only watch sermons online. I have no way to experience fellowship and discipleship with my fellow Christians because of my purple skin ratting me out as a wizard everywhere I go. The Bible not only says to love your neighbour as yourself, but also to love your enemies. Regardless of how the Church people feel about me, there is a lot of hate going around in a religion of love for mythfolk when all we want is to be normal. I pray every day that the prejudice will end, but it never does. I believe that a group such as this, with people of all kinds, will help show the world that we should all be able to get along and love each other.

\------------------------------

the8-r-satyr  
My name is Minghao. I enjoy dancing and rapping. I am a Chinese satyr. I get hate from both sides because technically I am mythfolk, but I can blend in with humans as long as I wear long pants and shoes. I just wish both sides could see that neither is bad, and neither of them are better than each other. Mythfolk and humans are different from each other. Satyrs are different than other mythfolk. Satyrs are different than humans. And that's okay.

\------------------------------

mermencanhavelonghair  
My name is Jeonghan. As a nearly pure merman, I face a lot of hate from my extended family for my father not marrying pure. My family was stripped of our name and our weather before I was born, so I have been raised greedily between land and water. I am accepted in neither human or merfolk societies, and often spend my time either at school or alone. Toomblr is an amazing place for me to connect, but the discourse is alarming. I hope to help rid Toomblr of hate speech and make it a place where friends can meet new friends and have a good time.

\------------------------------

werewolvesinthechickencoups  
My online name is S.Coups. I post a lot of stuff about rapping and hip hop. I am in college, but I face most of my hardships outside of school. Though I am considered an alpha, my breed of werewolf is a more tame one. The canine that I transform into is a Chihuahua. A lot of werewolves I know have been very violent towards me and my family because of our small canine transformations. While I am a rather tall, muscular person, I believe that violence does not solve problems, so I never fought back. I hope that, starting on Toomblr and expanding to the real world, we can end aggression towards minorities and underdogs and live in a kind, peaceful society.

\------------------------------

Last was Woozi's. Soonyoung had already used the tissue box a couple of times, and while his friends stories were lighthearted, he knew they must be hurting deep inside, and he couldn't help but imagine the horrors they must have experienced. He knew Woozi had been through a lot, and telling from how long his introduction post had been, Soonyoung knew he would need the tissue box again.

woozu-woozi  
My name is Woozi. I'm an imp, and a lot of stuff I blog about has to do with imp discourse, and educating those who want to learn about who imps are so that we aren't treated like animals or "Devil's Spawn". This is something that I am passionate about, not just because of it's affects on my species, but on myself as well.

I know first-hand how regular humans can have prejudice and stereotypes for mythfolk. My parents did their best to shelter me from it by sending me to an Imps-Only elementary school, and homeschooling me in middle school. After some family drama, they couldn't teach me at home anymore and now I go to a mixed species high school. I'm a senior now, so I don't have to be here for much longer, but I hear comments everyday about how I must be a slut. Calling me Incubus. Since Imp studies are considered too mature for high schoolers, all they usually know about my species is that we grant wishes, come from the devil, and have sex. This isn't true.

Imps are dark fairies. We come from the same place as fairies, have the same history. Out magics are just activated differently. Imps can cast spells and create Imp circles, the same way fairies can. We have wings. Our ancestors used dark magic, but in modern times imps only use imp spells that are considered non-demonic. We are not demons.

My goal on Toomblr is to not just get rid of the discourse, but to educate all beings, whether mythfolk or not, on all beings, so that there will be no need or reason for all this prejudice. I have experienced harassment and discrimination for things that are not just my race, either, and someday I would like to address those issues as well. Not only species, but things such as race, gender, sexuality, and economic status are NOT reasons to judge someone or harass them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope we get along well.

\------------------------------

Since Woozi’s post had been at the bottom, that meant that it had been the first post on the group page, ever. No other first post would have suited this page better. Soonyoung knew that this group of people would get along well, and he knew that with S.Coups heading the group, and with Woozi being so passionate, and with the other members being so open, that they would surely reach all their goals.

\------------------------------

naega-hashbrowns  
My name is Hoshi. It means Star in Japanese, which coincidentally, or fatedly, is the tarot card 17, which we named our page after. The tarot card 17 represents hope and inspiration. I know that if we all work together to reach our goals, we cannot fail. I am a fairy, and I face harassment every day. People often try to force themselves on me, or try to deceive and trick me into dating them so they can steal wishes from me. While I have never lost a job or been denied from a school for my species, I do have relatives who have been in these situations when they applied for a reputable business or university and were told that they were scum, prostitutes, or sluts. Someday, I envision a world where people are hired based on their skills, where students are accepted because of their grades, where no family has to starve and no one has to fear for their lives because of who they are and who they love. Stay strong, my friends, and let us seek inspiration to fulfill our own hopes and dreams.


	7. Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1279 words

It was one of those days. One of those days that Jihoon wished he had paid the SLIGHTEST bit of attention to who was in his class. After the follow-backs (he supposed he should call them Seventeen now, that was their group name) had done the introductions yesterday, he knew that DK was actually Seokmin. Now, if he actually knew cell phone boy’s name from yesterday, he would be able to answer the question of whether or not cell phone boy was in Seventeen.

He couldn’t ask cell phone boy. “Hey, is your name Seokmin?” What if he was wrong? If the other kids heard him ask, and he was wrong, he might just make the ONE nice kid in his class hate him.

He couldn’t ask DK either. “Hey do you go to Pledis High?” Not only would that seem SUPER creepy, since DK had never mentioned anything about his potential location, he worried that if he was wrong, cell phone boy would be… just that. Cell phone boy. Unapproachable, unknown cell phone boy. He wanted to be right, he just didn’t know how to find out.

He decided to go to school early. He didn’t have class until eleven, but he knew that teachers had one free period a day, and he didn’t want to miss his Chem teacher’s free period. He could sneak into the room, check the attendance list, and be out before anyone knew, and he wouldn't have to face cell phone boy to find out. It meant getting up at the ungodly hour of 6 am, but he was determined to find out today. He made sure to pack his spellbook and his music notebooks to work on while he was there, though. He didn’t want to let this unfortunate awakeness go to waste.

His Chem teacher didn’t have a free period that early in the morning, but Jihoon kept his eye out as he sat in the library. The high school library was a speck of dust compared to the ones they had at Magical University, but it was quiet and he could see the halls from wherever he sat because there were so many windows.

Jihoon wondered if he should message Hoshi about it. Maybe he knew DK personally? It might be worth a shot, and Jihoon knew that whether he was right or wrong, Hoshi wouldn’t freak out if he asked. He pulled his phone out, and checked his Toomblr messages. He hadn’t been super active on the account since Hoshi posted his introduction, but he knew the others had been responding to discourse and had been getting active in the mythfolk community. He could see by the amount of asks in the group inbox that their page was already catching attention. The other members of Seventeen had been answering asks, countering discourse, and tagging to their hearts content. Jihoon was proud that the page had grown so much in just a day, but he wasn’t surprised. A lot of their followers had followed their personal accounts before.

Before Jihoon could decide whether or not to message Hoshi, the bell rang. He got up and walked out for his own Chemistry class. Maybe he would find a lead there.

\------------------------------

Jihoon looked around the classroom and tried to see if the teacher had a schedule written anywhere. From his seat, he could tell that there was nothing on the whiteboard, no calendar on the wall, that had the teacher’s full schedule on it. He sighed to himself and put his head down on the desk. No obvious lead could be seen, so he decided to stop looking. He did, however, keep an ear out for the name Seokmin.

The teacher started taking role and Jihoon started to tone out his voice as he watched cell phone boy. He was whispering with a friend, but Jihoon couldn’t hear what they were saying, or if they had said each other’s names. ‘Seokmin, Seokmin, Seokmin, somebody say Seokmin…’ he thought to himself. At that moment, he heard it. The name.

His head whipped forward and his eyes landed on his teacher’s open mouth.

“Seokmin? How many times do I have to tell you to stop talking during roll call? You’re distracting other students.”

Jihoon almost broke his neck turning to look at cell phone boy. He saw him snap away from the conversation with his friend and grin at the teacher.

“Sorry! Won’t happen again.”

And then he winked. Cell pho- no, Seokmin- freaking WINKED at the teacher that had just raised a voice at him. Jihoon would have rather died than do something that could provoke a teacher, but the teacher just sighed and continued calling role. Jihoon was still in shock over his discovery when his name was called, and he almost missed it. He managed to call ‘here’ before too much silence had gone by, at least.

He wanted to facepalm. He was such an IDIOT. All he had to do was wait for roll call. He could have slept in today. He could not believe his own stupidity, but he blamed it on the fact that he was tired. He'd been up late last night doing homework. He'd been spending too much time on Toomblr and not enough time with his studies.

Speaking of Toomblr, he needed to think about what his next move would be. Should he let Seokmin know that they actually knew each other here, in person? Should he say something online? Should he keep his mouth shut? He didn’t know what to do with this newfound information.

He pulled his phone out, keeping an eye on the teacher as he did so. He didn’t want a repeat of yesterday. Opening Toomblr, he pulled up DK’s blog. He scrolled through it aimlessly, glancing over his posts and reblogs. DK seemed nice online, and Seokmin seemed nice in person, and Jihoon really wanted to be friends with him and everyone else. He couldn’t help but wonder, could there possibly be more of Seventeen living in town? It was a farfetched idea, but they always seemed to be online at the same times, so unless they were nocturnal or drop-outs, it was plausible that they at least lived in similar time zones.

He typed a message in the group chat.

To: everyone  
From: woozu-woozi  
What timezone do you guys live in?

He put his phone in his lap and did his best to pay attention to the teacher while he waited for responses. After a few moments, he glanced at Seokmin out of the corner of his eye. He saw him take out his phone. A few seconds later, Jihoon saw his own phone screen light up. Opening it, he saw an answer.

To: everyone  
From: dk-is-short-for-d-ck  
well, it’s 11:15am where I am

To: everyone  
From: mermencanbedivastoo  
dude same isnt that cool

To: everyone  
From: handsomehansol  
Well, Seungkwan and I go to the same school so its 11:15 for me too

To: everyone  
From: chimpchumpchan  
Wow cool we all live in the same time zone!  
maybe we all live in the same city too wouldnt that be awesome

To: everyone  
From: woozu-woozi  
You are all texting in class when you should be paying attention.

Jihoon put his phone down and decided to hold of on making a decision for a little longer. He could at least get through today, maybe sleep on it, before he did anything. He’d also spent too much time on his phone this class and didn’t want the teacher getting suspicious of him. He didn’t want detention, and he knew he couldn’t play it off like Seokmin did if he got in trouble.


	8. Time?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 918 words

Soonyoung had been on Toomblr a lot today. Ever since he’d read all his friend’s stories and knew just how much they wanted things to change, he was inspired to throw himself into the Toomblr community and do his best to help bring the change. It helped that his only Wednesday class was math, so he had a lot of free time, but he probably should have been working on homework too. Oh well. Instead, he was going to stay in bed on Toomblr.

He wanted to find a way to bring his online friends closer. He had been friends with all of them for several months, but he knew a lot of them didn’t know each other. While casual online friendships could be really fun, he felt that coming together like this and running this blog would require some team building exercises. That’s what this was turning into; a team.

It had been about a week since they started the blog, and he could tell who each reblog and post was from before he ever got to their name at the bottom. He knew, but he wondered if they knew. Did S.Coups know Seungkwan enough to be able to recognize his posts? Did Mingyu know Jeonghan well enough to recognize his? He knew that he had only indirectly been the cause of the blog, but he knew he needed to follow through on what he had started or he would never feel satisfied.

Opening up the group messages, he remembered that Jihoon, Mr. Antisocial Blogger, had started a conversation about time zones. Soonyoung had been delighted to see that the entire group was in the same one. That was a great start to getting to know each other. He saw, too, that Seungkwan and Vernon even went to the same school! He typed out a message of his own.

To: everyone  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Since we all live in the same time zone... I go to school with S.Coups, Jeonghan, Joshua, Wonwoo, and Jun! I see that Seungkwan and Vernon know each other outside of Toomblr as well! This is so cool! This might be jumping the gun, but do any of you live in Seoul?

He ignored the textbooks on his desk that were calling his name and continued to lay on his bed. He refreshed the app every few seconds, to make sure that he didn’t miss anything. After about thirty seconds, he got a reply in the form of a private message.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
We’ve lived in the same city this whole time and never realized it?

Soonyoung almost dropped his phone on his face. They both lived in Seoul? Seoul was huge, but still! It was awesome.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
OMG its awesome right? We should hang out sometime!

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
I can’t believe it. For a long time, it seemed like all the people I met on here were just fantasy, like imaginary friends. I can’t believe that so many of you live in this city.

Soonyoung frowned. Jihoon was never really one for making a lot of friends on Toomblr, but he wondered. Did Jihoon have any friends in real life? He sounded really lonely. Just then, the group chat exploded, and he only managed to type and send ‘ikr?!’ before the notifications took over his screen. He barely had time to process it all. He LOVED group chats but with his semi-laggy internet connection his phone didn’t. 

To: everyone  
From: chimpchumpchan  
WOWWW THIS IS SO COOL MAN I ACTUALLY LIVE IN THE SAME CITY AS YOU?

To: everyone  
From: handsomehansol  
Hmm, that makes nine of us so far. Who else lives here?

To: everyone  
From: dk-is-short-for-d-ck  
Me!!!!!!

To: everyone  
From: mermencanbedivastoo  
We’re at 10! Three to go!

To: everyone  
From: the8-r-satyr  
Make that 11

To: everyone  
From: mingyunicorns  
Im here, the only one left to respond is Woozi. Woozi, do you live in Seoul?

To: everyone  
From: woozu-woozi  
Yeah. I’m pretty sure that DK is in my Chemistry class, even. Pledis High senior?

To: everyone  
From: dk-is-short-for-d-ck  
WHATTTT HOW COME YOU NEVER TOLD ME THAT IS SO AMAZING  
WAIT ARE YOU JIHOON?  
HE’S THE ONLY IMP IN CLASS YOU HAVE TO BE HIM!!!

To: everyone  
From: woozu-woozi  
Yup. Speaking of school, I have homework, gtg

Soonyoung was dying inside. Not only were all his friends here, but a lot of the already knew each other! Or would, in DK and Woozi’s case. It would be so cool if they could meet up in person sometime. He went back to his private chat with Woozi.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
So your name is Jihoon?

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
If I say yes, will you tell me your name?

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
I’d tell you anyways. It’s Soonyoung

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
Soonyoung. I like that name. It suits you.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
thank you! I like your name as well. It’s just a shame I don’t have a face to go with the name :(

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
well, I really do have homework. I need to go, I’ll talk to you later. Maybe see you around

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Okie-dokie! Have fun studying!

Soonyoung held his phone close to his chest and felt a shiver run down his spine. Jihoon. What a perfect name. He broke into a fit of giggles as he rolled around on his bed, filling with excitement at the thought that maybe soon, he could meet Jihoon.


	9. Just Need Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1541 words

Jihoon found himself at Sunbucks once again. Last night, after doing his homework, he had found a long rant on Toomblr about how Imps should be culled and how all they did was harm society. Jihoon had been shocked at first by the extremist attitude of the poster, but after reading the in-depth analysis on Imp behavior and magic with lots and lots of examples of how Imps were bad, he almost wanted to believe the post for himself.

He knew that he wasn’t a bad person, and that him and his parents both helped contribute to society. He had a job, and his parents had been part of the team that found a cure for the magical Summer Frost disease that had devastated the food supply almost ten years ago. But still, the post was made by an educated person who obviously knew what they were talking about.

Some of the points made against Imps were that one, they could not control the wishing portion of their magic, meaning that anyone who managed to bed an Imp could have whatever they wanted. The point made was that the magic was too strong not to be controlled. The second point was that there were still archives out there, in the world, that held demonic spells. Imps, while not able to unlock the strongest part of their magic themselves, could find ways around the sex requirement with demonic spells, and not only that, could wreck unimaginable chaos on the world at any given moment. The archives were kept for history’s sake, but the danger was still there.

The poster’s last point was that, because of their race, Imps had a harder time getting higher education and going to college. Jihoon normally would have scoffed at this kind of argument, but the example he used hit close to home. The post stated:

“A particular example of how this affects not only the human, but the mythfolk world as well, lies in one young man who now resides in the Prism, a highly guarded, myth magic restraining jail system. If and when Imps lose their jobs, can’t go to college, and end up on the streets, or even when Imps just don’t have morals, they can turn to a life of crime. While this is something that happens with creatures of all kinds, the young man I am talking about today is named Lee Yoongi. He came from a stable family, with two parents and a brother. He was not in poverty, but could not find a job or get into college because his major was the Arts, and that is not a major that usually benefits society in a way that would justify and Imp going to college. His own greed and jealousy for creatures of other races drove him to madness. Without even a spellbook to guide him, Yoongi’s madness led him to create new demonic spells, ones which had never been seen or recorded. The power that he found led him to create a destructive storm. Fortunately, his family lived in a secluded area at the time, and no one was directly harmed by Yoongi’s madness and lack of control. After sending him away, his family moved and remains anonymous to this day. With a common last name like Lee, they have been able to blend in with the rest of the world so far. But who knows? Will Yoongi’s brother follow in his footsteps? Will other Imps, inspired by madness, do the same thing? These Imps are creatures of darkness. If we want our world to remain in the light, we must do all we can to make sure that threats like these are gotten rid of, once and for all.”

Lee Yoongi was Jihoon’s brother. Jihoon knew, he knew, that while his brother had had some mental issues, he had not succumbed to madness. He also knew that there had been a spellbook. Jihoon had stolen it out of Yoongi’s room one day, not sure what was inside. Yoongi, frantic to find the book before he was caught, had cast a demonic searching spell. The demonic storm was created by copious amounts of dark spirits entering the world, at Yoongi’s bidding, to find the book. Yoongi had never had ill intentions. Jihoon knew because in the margins of the all-inclusive spellbook that he still kept under his bed, there were Yoongi’s chicken scratch handwriting detailing how to change the spells, make them good again, bring light into the Imps’ dark past.

Jihoon had decided not to respond to the post. He was still anonymous. As far as anyone knew, he was an only child. His parents had wanted it that way, to protect the family from backlash like this. The government had also done their best to protect their top scientists, and labelled all documents related to the incident as 'Top Secret'. Jihoon linked the post to the group chat, so someone else could deal with it. He needed space.

Needless to say, he didn’t sleep much that night.

Stumbling into the coffee shop between the two college level classes he had on Thursdays, he looked up and met eyes with Fae. He saw the frown lines on her forehead, the worried pout on her lips as she saw his red eyes, dark eye bags and disheveled hair. She reminded him of his mother in that moment, and he felt a sweet sense of home.

“What should I get for you today, my favorite?”

Jihoon looked at the menu overhead with bleary eyes, barely able to make out the different options. As he spoke, he had a hard time keeping his voice from cracking.

“Something to distract me from the past? Keep me in the present? What do you have?”

Fae made a humming noise, and scribbled some notes on her notepad. He heard her mumbling something about mixing the ‘Remember me Knot’, ‘Radiant Rooibos’ and ‘Intense Indecision’ powders before she turned to him.

“You want it in coffee form? Or would you like it in tea form today? It’s more calming.”

He let out an unconvincing laugh.

“I’m perfectly calm! Put it in a coffee. I need to be awake today.”

He saw the pout come back out, but she nodded.

“On the house today, favorite.”

“Do you still have any of that Special Sunshine Salt?”

She pulled it out, and dumped a WHOLE lot more on his drink than she had last time.

“You look like you need a triple dose of this, favorite.”

He nodded and took his drink from her hands. Heading upstairs, he pulled The Spellbook out of his bag.

This book had been his teacher, his friend, for the past five years. He sometimes forgot the heavy secrets it held, but after the post this morning, he felt the weight of the world on his chest as he stared at it. He wasn’t entirely sure what to do.

He knew he couldn’t destroy the book. He had no idea where his brother had gotten it from, and he knew that if this book had magical properties (he was 100% sure it did), destroying it could bring more damage than a thousand demonic imps. He sipped his coffee and opened it to the table of contents. There was a clear split between demonic and non-demonic spells. At the end of the book, he knew there would be at least fifty pages of spells that he had created, doing his best to complete his brother’s work and take the darkness out of the old spells.

And just to ruin the heavy mood, Jihoon’s phone pinged.

He knew it had to be Soonyoung. His parents never texted him while he was at school, not even when there were emergencies. They made sure to put his studies first. He knew why.

The point of the coffee had been to think less of the past. He figured the best way to do that was to not stare at creepy old demonic spellbooks. He put the book away and pulled out his phone.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Hey! Are you okay? I know you usually never turn down the opportunity to roast an Imp hater!

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
Yeah, I’ve just had a lot going on. Did anyone reply to the post yet?

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Yeah, Chan and I really put him in his place! I didn’t know that story about the demonic imp though. Kinda scary, but not a good enough reason to hate on imps.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
What did Chan have to say about it?

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Well, he basically shut down the poster’s credibility. There’s nowhere online that talks about the Yoongi person, and Chan said that the government doesn’t have any public files on it either. Says it’s made up.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
Wow, Chan really did some research.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
You sure you’re okay? You don’t sound okay.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
I’m fine. Got to go, I have class.

Jihoon felt bad for ending the conversation so abruptly, but he felt like no matter what, the subject kept getting brought up today. He was getting frustrated, and he chugged the rest of the coffee before grabbing his stuff and heading to his next class. He hoped Soonyoung wasn’t hurt by his abruptness. He just needed space.


	10. Lie Detective Hashbrowns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1793 words

Soonyoung was very worried.

Usually, when Jihoon was busy or didn’t want to talk, he let Soonyoung know so that he wouldn’t bother him. But today, he hadn’t really given him a reason, he’d just blown Soonyoung’s worries off without even addressing them. Soonyoung was scared that maybe something was wrong, that Jihoon was having a hard time, and had no one there for him.

But at the same time, Soonyoung wanted Jihoon to have space if he needed it. He felt a bit hurt that Jihoon hadn’t just said so outright, but he didn’t want to pressure Jihoon if that would just make him more distant.

Soonyoung wondered if he’d been like that toward the rest of Seventeen. He knew that Jihoon wasn’t particularly close with any of them yet, but he also knew that Seungcheol would message Jihoon every now and then, and that Chan was always messaging Jihoon for advice. Seokmin, too, went to school with Jihoon. Maybe they’d noticed something?

He wasn’t sure if it was his place to ask, but he started with Seungcheol that day at school. He sat at their usual table behind the trees, and eventually, his friends started showing up.

He played it cool while everyone was there, he didn’t want to raise alarm just in case Jihoon was actually completely fine, but he gave Seungcheol The Look, silently asking him if he could talk. Seungcheol nodded, then turned to address the gourp.

“Hey guys, I’m going to the vending machine to get a soda. Anyone want anything?”

After taking everyone’s orders, Seungcheol raised an eyebrow at Soonyoung. Soonyoung tried his best to be casual as he said, “I’ll go with you and help carry the sodas!”

As they walked away, they were both silent for a bit, but then Seungcheol spoke up. “What’s got you worried? Frown lines don’t look good on you.”

Soonyoung chuckled half-heartedly. “Well, I was just wondering if you had noticed anything off with Woozi?”

Seungcheol mulled over the question before answering. “Well, after he linked the group to that one post, he hasn’t logged onto Toomblr since. It’s been almost a whole day.”

Soonyoung nodded energetically. “I know! And he always gets on before breakfast. I want to think that maybe he’s just tired, but I was messaging him today, I think he was signed on anonymously, but he seemed really off. I asked if he was okay, and he said he was fine. He asked about the post, but pretty much refused to give an opinion on it, and he blew me off when I asked if he was okay for a second time. I wonder if the post got to him? Usually he’s the first one to point out all the flaws in the poster’s logic, and Chan and I basically destroyed the poster’s credibility on that imp story, but I don’t know.”

Seungcheol looked equally worried and amused, and it frustrated Soonyoung. There was nothing funny about this situation! At all!

“Maybe he has something going on in his real life? He’s been really discreet online, all we know about his personal life is that he goes to school with DK and he was bullied.”

“Maybe he’s getting bullied? Maybe he’s getting beat up! Where do they go to school? I should check up on him!”

“Hold your horses, Soonyoung. Do you really think that Woozi would like it if you, someone he’s never met in real life before, showed up at his school asking questions? You can’t just show up and make everything better. I agree that something should be done if he is indeed getting bullied, but I don’t think that’s the way to go about it. Maybe ask DK if anything is up?”

Soonyoung sighed, but he knew that Seungcheol was right. If he showed up, he’d probably either make things worse when he left or make Jihoon think he was a creep. Neither of those were good options. He grabbed a few sodas and they started walking back to the table.

After he ate, he went to his math class. Instead of studying, however, he opened up Toomblr and messaged DK.

To: dk-is-short-for-d-ck  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Hey! Just wondering if you had noticed anything off about Jihoon today?

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: dk-is-short-for-d-ck  
Well, he’s part of a university program so he only comes to class Monday Wednesday Friday, so I wouldn’t know. I’ll let you know tomorrow if I notice anything!

To: dk-is-short-for-d-ck  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Ok, thanks! Also, what university? I know theres not a lot that will take imps.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: dk-is-short-for-d-ck  
Magical University! They have an arts program, and it’s a species inclusive school! Isn’t it so cool that there’s a University like that?

Soonyoung stared at the screen in shock. Jihoon went to the same school as him? He knew that, while he had told everyone he went to school with five members of Seventeen, he hadn’t said which school, but surely he and Jihoon would have discovered this by now? He felt a sense of betrayal towards the universe for keeping this from him.

To: dk-is-short-for-d-ck  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Wow, I go to that school too! I agree, it’s totally awesome. It just goes to show that there is hope for the world! The all-inclusive mindset starts here, and hopefully will continue out into the world!

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: dk-is-short-for-d-ck  
Yup! I’m applying there in the spring, since I’m a seinor. Hopefully I can join you all at MU next year! :D

Soonyoung sent DK a string of happy emojis, and put his phone away. Looking around, he realized that any of these people could be Jihoon. After a few minutes of scrutinizing, he realized that one, he didn’t actually know what Jihoon looked like yet, and two, Jihoon had texted him during this class before, saying that he was in the library. That meant that he did not, in fact, attend this class.

Soonyoung dropped his head down on the desk and tried to suppress a groan. He wanted to find Jihoon. Maybe he would send him a picture of his face? Then, he’d at least have something to go on.

He wondered, then, if he went to the library, would he maybe find Jihoon? He always seemed to be there. As Soonyoung thought about it, he wondered which library Jihoon went to. MU had at least seven, spread out across campus and each specializing in either history, science, architecture, blah, blah, blah... He never really paid much attention to libraries. He had a lot more success just going with the flow and using the internet.

He decided to go to his last source. Chan. Soonyoung knew that he and Jihoon messaged a lot, and he figured that if anyone had any information on Jihoon at all, it would probably be him.

After his math class got out, he pulled his phone out and opened Toomblr. Going to his private chats, he sent a message off to Chan.

To: chimpchumpchan  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Hey! Have you talked to Jihoon recently? Does he seem a bit off to you?

Immediately after he sent it, he saw the ‘Read, 2:46 pm’ come up, but Chan didn’t respond. Soonyoung grew increasingly worried as he walked back to the dorm. By the time he got back, it was 3, and there was still no response.

Soonyoung tried to lie to himself to feel better. Maybe, on this exact day every year, all imps gave up social media. Or maybe, they just didn’t talk to non-imps on this day. He did his best to justify why neither Jihoon nor Chan would message him back, but he couldn't think of any reason.

Except that damn imp negativity post.

Soonyoung wondered if the post had gotten to them. Chan had done an amazing job wrecking the poster’s argument, but maybe he was still sensitive? Soonyoung pulled the post up on his phone, and read it again.

Pulling up Google, he searched up the name ‘Lee Yoongi’. Nothing came up on the first four pages, but halfway down the fifth page of search results… There it was. There was a PDF file that contained a form, connected to the Prism Prison. The names had all been blurred out, but not enough. If he squinted, he could believe that the name ‘Lee Yoongi’ was at the top of the paper.

The document did not contain details, but was proof that someone named Lee Yoongi was, in fact, located in Prism, and had an association to dark magic.

There was a section of the document that contained the history of the man. He was taken in at age 19, making him 24 now. He had a brother, a mother, and a father. Soonyoung felt sick to his stomach when his eyes reached the bottom of the page and saw the official seal of the World Magic Association.

Could the poster actually have been right? Chan had said there was no evidence on the internet, but if Soonyoung could find it, someone else could too, and not only would the poster regain credibility, but Seventeen would lose theirs.

He messaged Chan again, this time with more urgency.

To: chimpchumpchan  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Chan, I need to talk to you. I found something online that you need to see.

He linked Chan to the page, but still got no response from the boy except for a ‘Read, 3:42 pm’ merely seconds after he sent the message. Soonyoung growled in frustration at how everyone was ignoring him. He was onto something, and he didn’t know what, but he was SURE that Chan knew. Why else would he have been avoiding Soonyoung’s messages?

Did this mean that Jihoon knew as well? Were both imps in on the secret? Was that why Jihoon hadn’t yet made a stand against the poster, why he wouldn’t give an opinion on the subject?

Soonyoung wasn’t one to foolishly believe conspiracy theories. He always did his research (it usually consisted of the first page of Google results, but still), and he always kept a bit of skepticism even if the theories proved to be true. But this was too much. He’d done more research than he’d ever done on something like this, and it was pretty clear that the poster had told the truth, at least about this.

After a good half hour of no response from either of his favorite imps, he couldn’t take it any more. He let it go, but only for now. Just because he had homework and a competition to prepare for, didn’t mean that they could get away with keeping this secret. Soonyoung would revisit the topic, once they were back online and responsive. He WOULD find out the truth.


	11. Coming Clean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1990 words

Jihoon had his phone on mute, and he decided to focus on things that didn’t include his brother, Soonyoung, or the poster he’d affectionately dubbed “Angry Accurate Anon”. So he decided that his competition preparations needed work, and got to it.

He had the music portion completed and recorded, and he was glad. He only had almost two months to have it ready, and he needed to work on the dance. As he pulled out his notes, he did his best to recapture the feeling he had last time he’d had Special Sunshine Salt.

He pulled out all the notes he’d taken so far, as well as his sheet music and his MP3 device. The spellbook sat across the table for him, ready to be used for reference whenever he needed to. He hit the play button on his MP3 device, letting the second rough draft of the music play out. He’d recorded it last night in his bedroom after tweaking a few things about the original. He would take it to the studio next time, and get a more professional sound.

As the music floated around him, he closed his eyes and started drawing from memory the imp circle that he had planned to use with the song. As it progressed, there were a few moments where he felt the circle was off just a bit, not quite representing what he wanted the audience to feel. He lightened his grip at those points, making those lines lighter than the rest. It was important for him to make sure he knew exactly what the circle would be, so that when the time came, he could choreograph movements that followed it.

When the song finished, he opened his eyes and compared his drawing to the spell he wanted to recreate. He was proud; after a few days of practice, he had the circle memorized. That, plus the fact that now that he knew which parts he wanted to change, meant that it wouldn’t take him long to finish this part of the project.

He spent several hours on the project, before giving in and calling it a day. It was only the first week of October, and he still had nine weeks before the show. He pulled out his phone, still feeling guilty about how he'd blown off Soonyoung's questions, even though Soonyoung had been nothing but caring when he'd asked them.

He saw several messages from Soonyoung, and at the very bottom, there was a short message from Chan. Only two words, but enough to make his blood run cold.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: chimpchumpchan  
Hoshi knows.

Jihoon wasn't a fool. He knew that while Chan probably didn't know if his identity as Yoongi's brother, he probably knew about the Yoongi incident. It was kept on the down-low, but that didn't change the fact that many imps had been put under special restrictions after the event and some people just knew.

But Soonyoung? He couldn't. He couldn't know. It wasn't possible. The government had promised to wipe all records of Young from public databases, but if Hoshi knew, they obviously hadn't followed through properly. He fired off a quick message to Chan, asking how he knew. He got a reply in seconds.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: chimpchumpchan  
Screenshot.png  
Link: www.__________.co.kr

Jihoon opened it, and saw a message, from Soonyoung to Chan. 

To: chimpchumpchan  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Chan, I need to talk to you. I found something online that you need to see.  
Link: www.__________.co.kr

Jihoon followed the link, the one that Chan had sent him, and the page that came up was one that was too familiar. They still had the original copy in his dad's desk at home. The name had been slightly blurred, but it was Yoongi's Prism form. Only a few details, but enough to validate what Annoying Accurate Anon had posted.

Before he even thought about responding to Chan, he screenshot his messages with Chan and Soonyoung and forwarded them to his Father. He sent him a copy of the link, as well. This needed to be taken down. While the form was vague, he knew there were private investigators who would be able to find them with a form even as skimpy as this one. His family's safety came before his friends’ disputes. He messaged Chan next.

To: chimpchumpchan  
From: woozu-woozi  
I've taken care of it. Don't worry.

He knew that Chan wouldn't ask questions; that had been their relationship online for years. Chan and Jihoon we're friends, but Chan never showed any doubt towards Jihoon's judgement and advice, as rarely as Jihoon gave it. Chan wasn't his main worry. It was Soonyoung.

Soonyoung had let the subject go, it seemed, but Jihoon didn't feel any peace. He'd seen Soonyoung do this once before, when The8 and Jun had been acting weird. He had lulled them into a false sense of calm, while playing detective and exposing the fact that they had been messaging each other and had decided to try going out. It was a good kind of detective work then, everyone had been happy for them, but Jihoon knew that if Soonyoung exposed his secret, it would not be a happy revelation.

He wondered if he should wait to message Soonyoung until after the page got taken down. Before he could decide, his phone started ringing. His father.

“Hello?”

“Jihoon. I got your messages. I just wanted to let you know that I just called The Man, and he said he would take care of it. Are you okay? Are your friends bothering you because of this? Does anyone know yet?”

“Woah Dad, slow down. I'm fine, just a bit shaken. My friends dropped the subject, only two of them know that Yoongi exists, and they don't know our connection. Don't worry Dad, I wanted to make sure our family was safe before I said anything to them.”

He knew that his Dad wouldn't get mad if he shared their secret with a close friend, but he knew his Dad was worried about Jihoon and whether he had many friends. His parents were very protective of him, and while they didn't support his pursuit of the arts and were hard to talk to sometimes, they still wanted what was best for him. 

“Just remember, Jihoon, we love you very much and while we don't want you to distance yourself from your friends, we don't want you to lose friends over this as well.”

Jihoon's voice was soft as he replied. “I know, Dad. You don't have to worry about these friends. They're good people, and they won't judge me regardless. Actually, some of them go to my school. They're really nice people.”

His father's voice was not quite loving, but was softer than before. “Your mother and I are happy for you, Jihoon. We just want to make sure you're safe.”

“I know, Dad. I have to go now, I need to focus on some homework.”

Their conversation ended, and Jihoon tried out the link again. The page was gone. The hard part was done.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
Hey I finished my homework what's up.

His reply came instantly.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Wow, what great timing! I just finished up some choreo for the chorus of a song. Did you see any of my messages? ^_^

Jihoon felt terror as he stared at the ^_^ emoji. It was Soonyoung’s least favorite emoji, Jihoon had heard him call it the ‘passive aggressive’ emoji in the past. There was no way that Soonyoung didn’t already know that Aggressive Annoying Anon was right. That Chan had BS’d his way through the reply.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
I glanced them over just now. Was there something you wanted to talk about?

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Why didn’t you want to respond to that anon earlier? ^_^

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
I was just busy. Why?

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Well, after that anon, you and Chan both obviously read my messages but ignored me for several hours. There’s something I want you to check out. ^_^  
Link: www.__________.co.kr

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
There’s nothing there?

He could almost feel Soonyoung’s shock. He could see in his mind’s eye, Soonyoung clicking on the link and finding a blank page. He just prayed that Soonyoung hadn’t saved the PDF before the page had gotten taken down.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Well, it used to be a Prism Form. It matched all the details from the anon’s post.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
Well, maybe he faked the pdf and took it down after Chan called him out.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
I never told you it was a pdf

Jihoon felt dread run through him. Damn, he had walked right into that one. He was beyond capable of avoiding a slip-up like that, but for the first time in five years, he felt something different. One, he felt comfortable enough with Soonyoung to get relaxed. That was why he’d made the mistake. Two, for the first time in five years, someone knew him well enough to call him out on his BS. He felt relief. He didn’t want to carry this by himself anymore. But he knew he would at least have to try, or else his father would not be so forgiving.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
I guessed… ?

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Why are you lying to me?

Jihoon knew that if he hadn’t had the special SunBucks drink earlier, he would be in tears by now. He didn’t know if those tears would have been from guilt or relief, because he was feeling both of those pretty strongly right now, but he knew that there would have been tears.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
I’m sorry. Sometimes I can’t help it when it’s about stuff like this.

To: woozu-woozi  
From: naega-hashbrowns  
Stuff like what? You still haven’t told me the truth about what’s going on.

To: naega-hashbrowns  
From: woozu-woozi  
Can I call you?

Soonyoung sent Jihoon his number in a span of about 1.5 seconds, and Jihoon was dialling before his impulsiveness wore off. He needed to get this off his chest, and if he didn’t do it now, he knew he would continue to isolate his problems for the rest of his life.

“Hello? Jihoon?”

Jihoon heard Soonyoung’s voice coming from his phone. It was the voice that occasionally made appearances in the dance videos, the voice that Jihoon had waited so long to hear say his name.

He laughed a little bit, his voice cracking, almost sobbing, but he pulled himself together.

“If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone. Chan doesn’t even know anything but the bare minimum.”

“I swear. Do you actually want to meet in person? DK told me we actually go to the same college. I’m on campus right now.”

“Starbucks. As soon as possible. I’ll be there. Come, please.”

“I’ll be there in five.”

Their conversation ended, and Jihoon felt shock. He put his stuff in his bag and walked down the stairs and into Sunbucks. He felt completely numb as he walked up to the counter.

Fae was looking at him with a knowing look.

“Booth in the back? Private room?”

Jihoon knew he must look totally wrecked right now. He simply nodded, and Fae led him to a room he didn’t even know existed. Inside was a small booth, calming lighting, and several dreamcatchers hanging up against the walls. If he had been paying attention, he might have noticed that the dreamcatchers were woven into Imp spells. He might have even seen that they were all the spells that he traded in for coffee. But he didn’t notice, he just sat down.

“Someone will join me in just a bit. Please bring him back here when he arrives.”

Fae nodded, and left the room. Jihoon stared at the wall, waiting.


	12. Private Investigator in a Private Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2555

Soonyoung ran.

He was completely winded by the time he reached SunBucks. He was lucky there was only one library on campus that had it. Otherwise he would have had to run a marathon to check every library here.

When he burst in, the barista smiled at him and waved him over. He walked towards her, looking around for Jihoon. Then he remembered that he didn’t know what Jihoon looked like.

“You are here for Favorite?”

He looked at her with his brow furrowed. Favorite? He nodded, assuming that she was referring to Jihoon. It wasn’t too crazy of an idea; Soonyoung knew that Jihoon was addicted to coffee, and if this was his go-to library, he could definitely be a regular here.

The barista lead Soonyoung to a room in the back. When he glanced through the window in the door, his breath caught. Sitting at the booth, arms crossed on the table and his head buried in them, was the most beautiful creature Soonyoung had ever seen. He forced himself to take deep breaths as he inspected the person that he knew was Jihoon.

His hair was long, hanging past his ears, but not quite at his shoulders. It was blonde, but the roots needed a touch up. He looked very small, probably barely 5’2”. He was wearing dark jeans and a black t-shirt. After Soonyoung knocked, Jihoon’s head lifted, and Soonyoung forgot how to breathe.

His face was clear, yet his eyes were bloodshot and he had bags under them. His hair was a mess, and his face looked flushed and bloated. Soonyoung wouldn’t have doubted that he had been crying. Still, Jihoon was more beautiful than the Siren subspecies that were known for their ability to be attractive to any creature, no matter what their preferences. Jihoon was just that amazing.

Soonyoung pushed the door open, and stepped inside. Jihoon looked almost surprised to see him there, even though he had known that he was coming.

“Close the door, please.”

Soonyoung did so immediately, barely giving himself time to dwell on how beautiful Jihoon’s voice sounded, even when it was cracked and hoarse. He slid into the booth across from Jihoon.

“Hey.”

Soonyoung wanted to slap himself. That was NOT what he had wanted to say. One, he was incredibly excited to see Jihoon, and wanted to express how happy he was to meet him. Two, Jihoon was obviously struggling, and probably needed words of encouragement. A simple ‘Hey’ did not do either of those sentiments justice, but he saw the corners of Jihoon’s mouth curve up slightly, and he knew it had been the right thing to say.

“Hey to you too.” A soft laugh escaped Jihoon’s lips, and he looked down at the table. “I know you’re probably still mad at me for lying, but can I explain myself first? You can’t be mad at me until you know why I did it.”

To be honest, Soonyoung had never been mad at Jihoon. He’d been hurt, and scared, and worried, but not mad. Soonyoung nodded his head, signalling to Jihoon that he could talk.

“Chan doesn’t know this, either, so don’t tell him please. All he knows is that Yoongi exists. Most imps kind of just know, but I guess it’s not just imps now. You know too.”

Soonyoung was confused. There was more to this that just the fact that Yoongi existed? He wouldn’t have known if Jihoon hadn’t said something. He thought that it was all just a cover-up for Yoongi’s existence. He didn’t tell Jihoon that, though.

“Yoongi… I knew him. I more than just knew him. He was my brother. He IS my brother. I just… My family went into Witness Protection after the event, and all his documents were supposed to be wiped. The only copies of his files are with Prism and with my dad. But I guess something got leaked. I told my dad and he got the link taken down, that’s why it wasn’t there anymore. I’m sorry for lying to you. I’ve never lied to you before, but I’ve been lying to everyone about this for years, and I never lied to you but I never told you about him, and I was just trying to protect my family, and-”

Jihoon was rambling, and Soonyoung was having a hard time processing it all. So not only was Yoongi a real imp, with real connections to dark magic, but he was Jihoon’s brother? The document had said that Yoongi had a family. Jihoon being his sibling would have never crossed his mind though.

“-but he wasn’t actually doing bad stuff, he was trying to fix a spellbook but things got out of hand, and it was my fault, and Yoongi got arrested because of me, and-”

Soonyoung knew that Jihoon was rambling, and that he wouldn’t be making much sense, but the file hadn’t said anything about Yoongi’s brother being involved in the dark magic. How had it been Jihoon’s fault?

“I still have the book and I don’t open it to those pages but I have a lot of notes and I KNOW I could be arrested but I haven’t done anything wrong-”

Soonyoung held a hand up to stop Jihoon then. The story was being told out of order, and Soonyoung was having trouble connecting the pieces.

“I’m not angry, Jihoon, but you’re not exactly telling the story in order and it’s hard to connect the pieces. Could you try and slow down for me? Take a second and just breathe. Breathe with me.”

Soonyoung was high-key panicking at this point but he hid it well. He needed to hear the whole story before he jumped to conclusions.

Jihoon was starting to calm down a bit, though Soonyoung feared he still might burst into tears, and Soonyoung prepared himself for what Jihoon was about to tell him.

“My parents are scientists. Yoongi hyung always wanted to be a scientist too, and we both always liked history. Yoongi somehow found this spellbook, it has every Imp spell ever created in it, and it always updates itself every time one is discovered. It had both dark and light magics in it, and Yoongi was trying to find light magic equivalents to dark magic. He didn’t want centuries of Imp spell theory to go to waste. He wanted to find ways to do the spells that didn’t require human sacrifice and stuff. And it was working.

I still have his notes, I still have his spellbook. He always hid it, and I knew he had a secret. Yoongi hyung always shared his secrets with me, but not this one, and I got curious. I was thirteen, I found the book. Yoongi hyung didn’t know I had it, he panicked, he cast a searching spell, but it was a demonic one. He had to cut his arm to do it, he had to spill blood. These demons got out and were searching, I was so scared, I thought they would attack me, but before they could, these people came and did something to Yoongi hyung. The demons stopped, they took him away, and I still had the book. They thought Yoongi hyung had created the spells himself, they thought that he was crazy. They saw the cuts on his arms and thought that they were all from summoning demons, when they weren’t. They put him in Prism, and my family went into Witness Protection. I can show you, Imp spells are similar to Fairy spells so I’m sure you can tell-”

Jihoon brought out a thick book, with writing in a language Soonyoung didn’t recognize. He was glad that Jihoon hadn’t been involved with dark magic, but at the resurfacing of the book, he started to get queasy again.

“See? Pages and pages of light spells. Yoongi hyung wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. If he had known that I had the book, he never would have cast that spell. But he didn’t know, and everyone found out about the dark magic, and made assumptions. He’s gone now, but I’ve been continuing his work. These pages are the ones that I’ve done. I’m not quite at Yoongi hyung’s level yet, but I’m getting there, and I’m careful. I swear, I’m careful.”

Soonyoung pulled the book towards himself. He could tell, with just a glance, that the spells were light spells. Over fifty pages. He could also tell which ones were from Yoongi and which ones were from Jihoon. Yoongi’s handwriting was crap, but he could see that the spells were much more complex and detailed than Jihoon’s. Jihoon’s handwriting was curly and feminine, and while his spells were not quite on par with Yoongi’s, they were still incredibly impressive. Jihoon must be a very powerful imp, just like his brother.

“What are your parents’ names?” Soonyoung asked. He knew of some famous, powerful imps. Jihoon said they were scientists, as well. Could they be?

“Jiho and Chaerin. We took my mother’s name, so our last name is Lee, but my father still uses his last name at work. Woo Jiho.”

Soonyoung almost started laughing like a maniac. Trust Jihoon to just happen to be part of the most powerful mythfolk family in the world and not even realize it. But if they went into Witness Protection when he was thirteen, he probably didn’t know how crazy famous his parents were. No wonder Jihoon was a prodigy, not only was he hardworking, he had natural talent.

“Crazy. Absolutely crazy. Do you realize how powerful your parents are? And if your brother is this powerful, too… The Lee family is one crazy family.”

Jihoon looked at Soonyoung like he was crazy.

“My parents? They helped with that Magic Frost Disease thing that killed the crops a couple of years ago. Why would that make them super powerful?”

Soonyoung just shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not that important anyways, they’re just super well known because of the science stuff. So, you have a brother, huh? I wish I had a brother. What was he like?”

Jihoon’s face glowed as he talked about his big brother. “Yoongi hyung wasn’t like most big brothers. You know, the whole ‘wrestling insensitive boys will be boys’ stuff? No. Yoongi hyung was like a dad and a mom to me. My parents were always busy with work, so he would make my lunches and help me with homework and stuff. We used to take the bus, and I always got picked on, but when Yoongi hyung found out, everyone stopped. Once he got his license, he would take me places. Even though I’m an imp, I like things that are light and fluffy, and I’m kind of scared of the dark- DON’T look at me like that Soonyoung- but Yoongi hyung would always stay with me when I got scared. I’m over it now, but when I was a kid, I would crawl into bed with him at night since my parents wouldn’t give me a night light.

After Yoongi hyung got taken away, my parents let up on me, and let me get a night light and stuff, but- SOONYOUNG stop laughing at me- I’m not scared of the dark anymore. My parents pretend like he doesn’t exist, won’t let me talk about him, and got rid of most of his stuff. They keep Yoongi hyung’s old room locked now. Anyways, I always wanted to go see him at Prism. He can have a single visitor, once a year, family only, and its monitored, there’s a magic-proof glass between us the whole time, but my parents never let me go. Now that I’m 18, I want to go see him. I just need to find the time.”

Soonyoung had been staring at Jihoon while he talked. He loved how Jihoon’s face lit up when he talked about his brother, loved how excited Jihoon was at the thought of going to see Yoongi, loved how Jihoon’s expression changed from sad to happy. He was worried about the anon, but he knew Jihoon had probably been stressing out about it and Soonyoung wasn’t about to stress Jihoon out even more. Soonyoung was also selfish; he was enjoying getting to just sit and listen to Jihoon talk. He’d had dreams of getting to meet Jihoon in person, but they were nothing compared to this.

After Jihoon told Soonyoung about all his favorite memories of when Yoongi had taken him to the arcade, to the movies, to the beach, to the park, to the library, and more, Jihoon seemed to stop all of a sudden.

“What’s wrong,” Soonyoung asked.

“I’ve spent the past two hours talking about myself! I literally just met you for the first time and you’ve barely gotten to say two words! I can’t believe I’ve been so impolite!”

Soonyoung laughed. “It’s no big deal! You’ve seen pictures and videos of me, heard my voice, all that, but this is my first time seeing or hearing you. I don’t mind just listening.”

Jihoon turned a dark red and refused to meet Soonyoung’s eyes. “Should we order coffee? I can call Fae over.”

“Sure! I hear you’re her favorite customer?”

Jihoon’s embarrassment seemed to grow more, but he nodded. “I come here at least four times a week. ‘Favorite’ is her nickname for me.”

Appearing out of nowhere, Fae opened the door and had two drinks in her hands.

“For my Favorites.”

She gave them an eye smile and left the room as quickly as she had entered.

Soonyoung was weirded out, but it didn’t seem to bother Jihoon. “So her name is Fae? Is she always this telepathically knowledgeable of what her customers want?” The drink she had given Soonyoung was a vanilla spice mocha, his favorite flavor ever, despite never having seen Soonyoung before.

“You learn to just go with it,” Jihoon said, sipping what appeared to be some sort of supercharged frappuccino. “She’s never wrong.”

Just then, Jihoon’s phone buzzed on the table. Soonyoung didn’t know what the message said, but he saw Jihoon’s eyes go wide and a look of panic crossed his face, and Jihoon jumped out of his seat.

“Shit! I missed dinner. My family always eats at seven on the dot. It’s almost 8:30!”

“We could grab food somewhere if you missed dinner at home?” Soonyoung suggested.

Jihoon gave him a sad look and started packing up his books. “I would, but my parents are strict about this kind of thing. I have to go home and clean up the dinner dishes, and I know they saved me a plate. If I’m any later than I am now, I’ll never hear the end of it. Maybe another time?”

Soonyoung nodded, and got up as well. “I’ll walk you out! I should head back to the dorms before Seungcheol and Wonwoo get worried. I’m usually back by 9.”

After Jihoon disappeared from sight, Soonyoung started jumping around and making whooping noises. He had just met Jihoon in real life. He knew about Jihoon’s family, about Jihoon’s passions, he even knew now that Jihoon liked frappuccinos and was scared of the dark. It was everything he hadn’t known he wanted to know, and he was excited to see where these revelations would take them.


	13. Interlude: Fae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1463 words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short introduction to who Fae is and how she knows so much. Thank you guys for being so patient with me!

Fae was not a mythfolk.

Fae was so much more than that.

Fae had a way with dreamcatchers. She sewed them up herself. Her favorite customers were the ones that gave her new spells, because she LOVED being the only coffee shop that had unique dreamcatchers with magical properties such as making her customers feel at home.

SunBucks was truly a unique shop. She had a ‘safe place’ policy. If there was ever a customer that made anyone feel unsafe within the boundaries of the shop, they were evicted. Unlike MoonBucks, the more mainstream coffee chain that resided at most campus libraries around the world, SunBucks was a family and friend oriented shop, and she wanted to keep it that way.

While she treated all her customers with equal respect, she couldn’t help but have her favorites. One of them was Kim Hansol, a young dancer who seemed to blend into the background regardless of his immense talent. He was so innocent and kind, and he was one of the only imps on campus.

Maybe she just had a thing for mistreated imps. Because her other favorite, was Lee Jihoon. An early enrollment student that spent more time in the library than his own home. His talent shone brighter than the sun, brighter than the SunBucks (lol), but those who were supposed to care for him seemed to treat him like crap.

Jihoon was special. He was in the library almost every day. She heard him sometimes, working from a booth near the counter, creating his music, his spells. One thing that Fae was able to do was to see what her customers needed the most.

Some customers assumed that she had some sort of spell, some type of magic that she used to see. But she didn’t she just knew. And whenever Jihoon came in, she usually got him the same thing.

His usual was an Iced Caffe Americano, pretty standard, but with a twist. She usually brewed it with special beans, ones that she had harvested herself for just this purpose. The beans were meant to focus the drinker’s minds on what they truly needed, not what they thought they needed.

It was part of SunBuck’s charm, she supposed. Her brews gave customers clarity of mind, and focus. Perfect for a college campus, but perfect for any confused soul in general. Jihoon was both.

She had a lot of special ingredients that were not on the menu. She reserved these items for those who she knew needed them the most. One of them was her Special Sunshine Salt.

She kept this salt under the counter. It was partially a placebo effect, but the salt DID have a special quality. Self-confidence. She only gave this to those who she knew felt low. And Jihoon always came in feeling low.

She also had a special cream that she used. Whenever Jihoon order a frappuccino, she used this cream. It gave a feeling of nostalgia, but also a feeling of peace. She knew that when Jihoon ordered a frap, it was because he was missing someone from his past. The cream was perfect for him. She called it Calming Creme

Her last special ingredient, as far as ingredients that she used with Jihoon went, was her Comfy Chocolate. She used it in her mochas, and it was one thing she was most proud of. A lot of customers who ordered Hot Chocolate got it because they wanted a drink without caffeine, and she respected that, but those who ordered mochas were different. It meant that while they didn’t like the taste of ordinary coffee, but the needed caffeine. Jihoon got mochas only occasionally, and they were on days where he was most happy. She never used Comfy Chocolate in Hot Chocolate, only in mochas. This ingredient held all the feelings of sitting at a kitchen table with someone you loved, sipping cocoa and watching it snow. It was a very specific feeling, and she knew that those who ordered mochas usually needed it. With Jihoon, though, it only added to the happy feelings he already had when he ordered a mocha.

She had seen him in the booth before. He had been three years old. He had no recollection of this, of course, but Fae remembered all the details.

Jihoon’s mother had brought him and his brother in one winter. Chaerin was always closer to the boys than Jiho was, and this was one of those times when Chaerin left her office early and took the boys out.

These days were short, and rare, but Fae remembered them because Chaerin always ordered the boys caffeinated drinks. Mochas usually weren’t for three and eight year olds, but it made the boys feel mature, and they were.

Fae had been close to Chaerin. They had moved when Jihoon was five, out to the country, during the Magic Frost Disease (MFD). When they had moved back, things were different. Chaerin hadn’t talked to Fae since the MFD incident.

When they returned, Yoongi was not with them. Fae knew. She knew where Yoongi was, and she knew what Yoongi had done. It broke her heart, and while she didn’t know the whole story, she believed in his innocence. She could still recall the day when Yoongi, at ten years old, brought a small Jihoon in during a storm. Their parents wouldn’t let them in, because they had office hours. Yoongi had no money, and Fae could tell when they walked in that Yoongi was scared.

She knew that Yoongi had probably promised Jihoon a Mocha to keep him calm. Jihoon was too young to know how his parents were being neglectful. Chaerin had never done it intentionally, but being married to an alcoholic workaholic had taken a toll on her. She worked to escape. Yoongi took care of Jihoon, and Jihoon was too small to know what was going on.

She gave them both mochas, free of charge. That was the last time she had seen them.

Nearly a decade later, they returned. Jiho no longer drank, and Chaerin was even more into her work than she had been before. She knew they took more time for Jihoon now, but Jihoon had changed.

Jihoon hadn’t remembered Fae, and after he started going to MU at sixteen, he just assumed that Fae was a human with some sort of remarkable people reading powers. She had never had the heart to tell him the truth.

She remembered back to last week. Jihoon had been a train wreck, and while she kept her feelings in check while she lead him to the private room, she wept in the storage closet after she got him settled in. She had taken notice, though, of the boy’s words.

Someone was coming to meet him. She didn’t know if it was friend or foe. If it was foe, that person would get nowhere near Jihoon. She was surprised, however, when a young man came in the door, looking winded and panicky.

She knew what he was here for, but she asked anyways.

“You are here for Favorite?”

He seemed to not understand her nickname for Jihoon, but he nodded, and she lead him to the room.

The awestruck look on the young man’s face let her know with finality that this was friend. He looked just as heartbroken as she had when she had seen Jihoon walk in, but he also looked amazed. He forgot all about Fae, and completely focused on Jihoon.

Fae kept an eye on them. It was obvious that they knew each other, but that they had also never seen each other before. Internet friends, maybe? After serving a number of customers, she peeked in again. Jihoon was smiling, laughing, and looked happy. He looked happy.

Fae cried in the supply closet again. Her little boy was all grown up. She saw the way that Young Man looked at Jihoon, and she saw how satisfied Jihoon looked being around him. Maybe they didn’t know it yet, but Fae’s eyes told her that they needed each other. That maybe her special ingredients wouldn’t have to be Jihoon’s only way of bringing out his happiness anymore. Fae’s job was done.

She felt a tug on her mind, and she wiped her tears away. She readied two drinks, and walked into their room. After setting the drinks down, two drinks that had no special ingredients, she went back to the front and went back to her job. Her second job. Her, not-Jihoon’s-surrogate-mother job. And she let her biggest smile shine for all her customers that day, because while she felt like a piece of herself was missing, she knew that the missing pieces of Jihoon were finally returning to him, and she was happy.


	14. Detention is fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1772 words

Jihoon felt so much better after talking to Soonyoung. He felt slightly guilt for dumping the whole thing on Soonyoung, and not even letting Soonyoung talk the whole time, but he felt like a burden had been lifted off his shoulders. He had done his best to keep thoughts of Yoongi out of his head, too pained to even think about his older brother, but Soonyoung had listened, and allowed Jihoon to have fun recalling all the good times. 

After getting home and cleaning the dinner dishes, he sat on the couch and listened to his parents rant about how dinner was the only time they had as a family and how important it was that he didn’t miss meals like this. He almost wanted to come back with something snotty, like “If you guys didn’t work 80 hour weeks when I know you could still be millionaires on a 20 hour week, maybe you’d see me more often” but he didn’t. He didn’t want to ruin the good mood he was still in by getting into an argument with his parents. He simply told them he had been worried about the link and had trouble focusing on his homework, causing him to stay out later, and that he would make it to family dinners from now on. They were satisfied, and he went to his room.

He giggled as he lay in bed, thinking about how Soonyoung had asked him out to eat. He knew that it wasn’t a crazy thought, two friends getting food, but he was overjoyed that Soonyoung was still interested in hanging out with him after all the baggage he had dumped on him.

He pulled out his phone and logged onto Toomblr for the first time since the Annoying Accurate Anon(AAA) incident. He pulled up the post again, and looked with satisfaction at how wrecked the AAA was after Chan’s response. He saw over a hundred unread messages from the group chat, and got busy catching up on them.

Nothing much was new, it was mostly the members of Seventeen fawning over Chan for his cool-headed and well structured response to the anon. Chan was preening, and Jihoon knew that Chan had already let the whole Soonyoung-finding-out-about-Yoongi thing leave his mind. After that, he got started on his real homework. He’d spent so much time on the competition and worrying over the Yoongi thing that he hadn’t even started the essay that was due tomorrow morning. He sighed, and got started.

\------------------------------

Friday was weird. He showed up at school, just like usual, and people banged shoulders with him, as usual. But as soon as he sat down in Chemistry, someone else sat down next to him.

Usually the seat next to Jihoon was empty. People didn’t want to sit next to an Imp. Who knows what they would do? He saw the face of the boy next to him, and he immediately knew why he sat next to him.

“Hey Jihoon! I know you don’t like to talk much at school, but Hoshi seemed worried about you yesterday! So I will be sitting next to you, cheering you up today!”

The nosy, busybody smile on Seokmin’s face was annoying, but Jihoon couldn’t bring himself to be mad. Soonyoung had been worried about him, and so had the others. He wasn’t going to tell anyone else what was going on, but he could do his best to act normal and alleviate their worries. 

Once class started, Jihoon did his best to pay attention with Mr. Troublemaker sitting next to him. Seokmin kept trying to pass him notes, but he just ignored them all. After class, he sighed and turned to the boy.

“I’m not allowed to have writing utensils during school because of my species, and I know you probably didn’t know that, but I can’t really pass notes in class.”

Seokmin instantly apologized and pulled out his phone instead. “Don’t worry, we can text during class! It’s the exact same thing!”

Jihoon dropped his head onto the table and groaned. No, texting in class was much more obvious. Especially if they sat next to each other. He turned and looked at Seokmin, not picking up his head. “Are you trying to get me in trouble?”

Seokmin laughed, and didn’t deny it. “Well, you need to learn to live a little! Detention is super fun, you should come sometimes! The guy who runs it is a Satyr, and I have some friends and we always get detention together! Come on, give it a try!”

Jihoon wondered if Seokmin was some kind of masochist for enjoying detention, or if maybe he was a sadist for getting all of his friends into it too. He sighed and decided, what the hell. He told Seokmin that he better be in detention today because if he wasn’t, Jihoon would kill him.

During art class, he pulled out his phone and swiped around on the home screen until the teacher noticed. When she did, detention.

After his class (it was lunchtime detention), he had some trouble finding the detention room. Fortunately (or not), Seokmin anticipated this and sought him out. After leading him to the detention room, Seokmin walked over to a small group of boys. There were five of them, and while Jihoon could tell that some were mythfolk and some were human, he was amazed that they all seemed to be getting along.

He followed Seokmin, a bit hesitant at first to approach a group of strangers. He eyed the teacher, but the man just smiled at him and nodded. He focused his attention back on the group.

Most of the boys looked normal. Humanoid. But one of them stuck out in particular.

He was probably about 5’4”, not much bigger than Jihoon, but he had black hair. And black wings. Jihoon’s steps faltered as he realized that the boy was an imp. Was there really another imp in school and he didn’t know? He almost wanted to laugh, it seemed like a joke. Imps were so rare. Could it really be?

Seokmin sat down at the table. It was round, and there was a chair there just for Jihoon. His movements slow, he reached for the chair and sat down in it. He did not speak, barely looking at the people at the table, just keeping to himself.

“Ok, guys, so I know we kind of agreed not to tell Jihoon about this until he found out on his own, BUT today I convinced him to get detention because I just couldn’t keep it in anymore.”

Jihoon’s head snapped up at that, giving Seokmin the most confused look. Did these people know him? What did they know? How much did they know? Before he could continue to panic, Seokmin gave him a huge smile and kept talking.

“SO onto introductions. Jihoon, you know Mingyu, Seungkwan, Vernon, Minghao, and Chan, right? Well, this is them.”

Jihoon looked at them, eyes wide, trying to decide whether to be happy to be meeting them all in person or angry that it had been a secret. He turned to the imp boy, who was actually Chan, with shock.

“You knew about this and you didn’t tell me?”

“No no no! All I was told was that there was another imp in school. Today was a surprise for me too, hyung!”

Jihoon turned his accusing eyes to Seokmin.

“Okay, before you freak out, I know how shy you are because I always have class with you and you hadn’t seemed super keen on making friends at school even after you knew who I was, so I decided to let Mingyu, Seungkwan, and Hans-Vernon’s real name is Hansol, by the way- but we knew that Chan couldn’t keep a secret for his life so we didn’t tell him. We just wanted to surprise you, Jihoon. Don’t be mad.”

Jihoon sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I’m not mad, I’m just kind of shocked. I just met Soonyoung at MU for the first time yesterday, I didn’t realize that I went to the same school as all of them, and it turns out I go to school with all of you too. It’s a lot to take in.”

“You got to meet the rest of Seventeen already? Damn it!” Minghao was the last person Jihoon would have guessed would use the word ‘damn’ but he guessed he was wrong. “Now I owe Mingyu five dollars.”

“No, I only met Soonyoung yesterday. I only realized that I went to school with the rest, I haven’t actually met them yet.”

Mingyu gave Jihoon puppy dog eyes. “Can’t you change your story, hyung? I really wanted that five dollars.”

Minghao cheered and Mingyu pouted as they exchanged money. “I’m just glad we did this today! Otherwise I might have had to give Mingyu money I didn’t have!”

Mingyu and Minghao continued to bicker in a friendly manner until the teacher asked them to quiet down. They were still in detention, no matter how nice the teacher was.

Seokmin turned to Jihoon. “That’s Professor Bumzu. He’s super nice and doesn’t mind if we goof off, we just have to be quiet about it. He’s got to keep up appearances!”

Jihoon nodded, and turned to Chan. “It’s nice to meet you in person, Chan. I’ve known you for years and I never realized we went to the same school.”

Chan’s face lit up. “I know, hyung! It’s so crazy that the only imp blogger I know is the only other imp at my school! It’s such a weird coincidence that we are all here like this!”

Jihoon nodded as the group of boys started getting rowdy again. He spoke up before they got in trouble. “Instead of arguing, can you all tell me what grade you’re in? I don’t actually know that much about you all outside of the internet.”

It turned out that while Seokmin and Mingyu were both seniors like him, Seungkwan and Ver-Hansol were juniors, and Chan was a freshman. They continued to talk and hang out until lunch was over, and Jihoon left school to head home. He had enjoyed meeting them all, but he was tired out after all the excitement in the past two days.

Returning home, he decided to take a trip down memory lane and study the spells that Yoongi left behind after he went to prison. He hadn’t really looked at the book much since the AAA post, but he thought it was time he got back to it. He was the only one who could do it, after all.


	15. ANGST MUAHAHAHA (and some fluff)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1478 words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: BRIEF NON CONSENSUAL KISSING

Soonyoung had been having trouble focusing on school after he met Jihoon. It wasn't really his fault though, I mean, Jihoon was super cute and passionate about his family and Soonyoung was just worried about him, and wanting to see him again.

Unfortunately, his teachers noticed his lack of attention, and seemed to give him note homework than before to make up for it. Soonyoung hadn't had any spare time to work on his competition piece, and he'd barely had time to message Jihoon and tell him he was busy before he was swept up in five essays, three quizzes, and two tests he had to study for.

When Soonyoung finally had a moment to breathe, he was remixing the song that he would use for the competition. He could sing and rap, and he wrote lyrics sometimes, but mixing and composing weren't things that he had a lot of experience with.

He was getting the hang of it though, and after a few YouTube tutorials on how to work the equipment, Soonyoung was mixing to his heart's content. He was glad that he was a quick study when it came to the arts.

He hadn't logged on to Toomblr in *gasp* FIVE WHOLE DAYS! He mostly kept his phone turned off to keep it from being a distraction. He was on a roll now, and outside of his friends occasionally bringing him food, he hadn't had much socialization in the past week.

Eventually, he felt like he was starting to burn out, so he packed his stuff away, put his work to the back of his mind, and turned on his phone. He decided to ignore Toomblr for one day more, instead he chose to call Jihoon.

“Hello?”

“Hey Jihoon this is Soonyoung! Are you busy right now?”

“Well, I've been at the library doing some studying, but besides that, not really. Why?”

“I was wondering if you wanted to get food? I've been so busy that I forgot to eat lunch, and I know it's kind of early for dinner, but if we got food now there won't be any lines? And you'd be home in time for family dinner?”

Soonyoung heard Jihoon chuckle over the line, and heard the sound of books being closed and moved around.

“Sure. Where should we go?”

Soonyoung hadn't thought this far ahead, but luckily he was a quick thinker, and responded with the first restaurant he could think of. “Waffle Haus?”

Soonyoung cringed as he heard himself say those damn words. Waffle Haus? At 3 pm? Really?

Jihoon's chuckle turned into a full-on laugh, and while Soonyoung felt bliss at the sound, he just wished Jihoon wasn't laughing at him.

“Why not? Waffle Haus at 3 in the afternoon. Sure! See you there in 10?”

Soonyoung only half believed that Jihoon had actually agreed, but he mumbled an affirmative and hung up the phone.

Seriously, waffles in the afternoon. SERIOUSLY. He snapped out of his hazy shock and started to head over.

He was in total ecstasy at the thought of getting mid afternoon breakfast with Jihoon. Looking back, he should have been paying more attention to his surroundings than to his thoughts. If he had, he would have been able to see Professor Hyuna walking towards him. He would have remembered that she was a Wizard, and that Wizards always enjoyed getting wishes.

If he had thought to look around him, he would have seen the wand in her hand, and the look in her eyes. He would have run away if he had heard her whispering the jelly legs spell, and he wouldn't have fallen to the ground.

Before he knew it, he could feel her lips on his and the power leaving his body. He shoved her off with his arms, but he couldn't run because he couldn't move his legs. He cursed, calling out his wings, and flew as fast as he could towards the Waffle Haus. Professor Hyuna wasn't chasing him anymore, and he started to cry, knowing that she had three of his wishes and all of his lip virginity.

He still couldn't feel his legs, so when he saw the entrance to Waffle Haus, he just collapsed on the bench outside and decided to wait for Jihoon. 

When Jihoon showed up less than two minutes later, Soonyoung was pretty much past the crying feeling, and was more in numb shock. His professor, of all people, han just stolen his first kiss and three wishes. She was such a nice teacher, too. He couldn't imagine what she would need so badly that she would force herself on a student.

“Soonyoung? Are you okay?”

He heard Jihoon speaking, but he didn't really have the energy to respond. Instead, he just stared at Jihoon blankly. When he saw Jihoon's worried frown, however, he felt himself tearing up.

“She…”

“She what, Soonyoung? Did something happen?”

“She… she took… it's the first time…”

Soonyoung couldn't say much more, he felt both physically and mentally exhausted from the ordeal, and he was glad to see that Jihoon seemed to catch on.

“Did someone take wishes from you?”

Soonyoung was glad that Jihoon said it that way, because if he had mentioned the kissing thing, Soonyoung would have cried for real. He knew that the kissing thing wasn't actually that big of a deal, but Soonyoung was a romantic, and he had always wanted to save his first kiss for his first boyfriend, whenever he had one. He also wanted his first boyfriend to be the one he married, so he never really dated.

“Do I feel this weird because she took my wishes or because she took my first kiss?”

Soonyoung felt tears starting to fall, and he tried his best to wipe them away. Jihoon had his arms around Soonyoung's shoulders, and Soonyoung leaned into Jihoon's hug.

“Maybe we should eat at home? Somewhere more quiet and calm.”

Soonyoung nodded, but didn't move from where he was. “I know it probably doesn't seem like a big deal for a fairy, it's probably worse for an imp if they get their wishes taken from them, and I know it probably wasn't actually that bad, but I-”

“Shh, shh, come on, Soonyoung. Let's talk more at my house, my parents are at work, okay?”

Soonyoung nodded again, but stood up this time and followed Jihoon. 

Soonyoung didn't really pay attention as they walked to Jihoon’s house, his focus completely on how Jihoon was leading him by the hand, their fingers intertwined. Soonyoung knew that his hand was probably sweaty, but Jihoon didn't let go.

When they got to Jihoon's house, Soonyoung barely noticed how big it was, opting to look at the empty driveway and wonder if this was why Jihoon spent so much time at the library.

As they entered Jihoon's room, Soonyoung was shocked at how girly it looked. Soonyoung didn't mean to label it with a gender stereotype, but everything was pink, sparkly, and fluffy. He would have laughed if he was more in his right mind, but instead he decided to ask if he could cuddle up on the bed with the giant fluffy pillow that looked super comforting.

Once Soonyoung was settled down on Jihoon's bed, he noticed that Jihoon was sitting in a desk chair looking at him. Soonyoung barely maintained eye contact with him, though; he felt embarrassed about the whole situation and while he trusted Jihoon with his life, he wasn't sure he wanted to complain about his lip virginity to someone who probably had things a whole lot worse than him.

Jihoon seemed expectant, though, and Soonyoung knew that he wouldn't belittle him or his feelings. He gathered his strength, and opened his mouth.

“My professor. She was right there and I should have seen her, but I didn't. She… She kissed me. That was it. She put a jelly legs spell on me, but it wore off before you found me. I had to fly away.”

Soonyoung heard Jihoon mutter his name sympathetically, but he wasn't finished yet. “I'm sorry for making a big deal about it but I've never been kissed before and it doesn't seem like a big deal, but I never thought I would lose my lip virginity like this and it was so awful and I feel really weak after the wishes left me and I'm scared, what would she even need those wishes for?”

Soonyoung barely even noticed when Jihoon moved to the bed, sitting next to him, but he was snapped out of his ramblings when he felt Jihoon's hand run through his hair. He relaxed almost immediately, leaning into the touch. He was so tired, and after a few minutes of just sitting and breathing, enjoying the softness of the bed and the warmth of Jihoon's hand, he felt himself… drifting… off...


	16. Fluffy chapter to celebrate my return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1710 words

Jihoon was not at all sure of what to do. Soonyoung was sleeping on his bed, not the 15- minute-napping kind of sleep, but the 8-hour-bedtime kind of sleep, and Jihoon's parents would be home in three hours, and Jihoon STILL hadn't finished the homework that was due tomorrow morning.

Jihoon took a moment to just breathe, and try to get his thoughts together. If he had been in Soonyoung's position, he honestly wouldn't have cared if someone kissed him. He was an Imp, so it wasn't too big of a deal for him, but he wouldn't have been hung up on it.

Jihoon knew that Soonyoung was a romantic, and he wasn't surprised that Soonyoung had freaked out. Jihoon was sympathetic, because he knew (not by experience, but still) how awful it must be to have your powers forced out of you, and to lose control of your powers. Not only that, but the lady (Soonyoung's professor, apparently, MU could expect a complaint from him about it) had also used a jelly legs spell, which not only made the victim's legs like blubber, it usually also made it hard for them to think. Jihoon didn't know why the spell was even still legal, but he guessed since it wasn't 'dark’, the wizards got away with it.

Either way, Soonyoung had been violated and Jihoon was furious. The things he would do to make that lady regret what she did… the things he wouldn't ACTUALLY do because he wasn't a criminal… he would definitely make a complaint though.

He still had a few hours before his parents got home, and Soonyoung wasn't waking up anytime soon, so Jihoon grabbed his bag and headed out.

One of the perks if working in a magical tattoo parlour was that you got free tats. Also, that you could use special ink to keep the tats invisible unless you needed them. Jihoon passed his right hand over his left arm, bringing a spell circle to the surface of his skin.

What better way to make a complaint than to do it in person? He was sure that Soonyoung's teacher was still on campus.

He had a casual demeanor as he strolled around the Waffle Haus, so as not to look suspicious. The magical tattoo that was on his wrist shined, and Jihoon knew exactly where to go.

The alley was quiet, and at first Jihoon thought the spell had lead him astray. But Jihoon had faith in his spells, so he steeled his resolve and crept down the dark path.

He stilled when he began to hear the whisper of chanting, and he held his breath as he saw a wall rise up behind him, sealing his exit. He felt the burning need to step out of the shadow now, but he knew that while there was a chance she knew he was there, it was more likely the wall was to keep intruders out. Jihoon had slipped in just in time.

Jihoon continued to creep forward until he could understand the words being spoken. Wizard magic was different from fairies and imps; they spoke their incantations, and released their magic through wands. The power of wishes didn't change that fact.

The spell would have been too complicated for a regular imp to understand, but after working in the tattoo shop, Jihoon had gained a basic understanding of wizard runes and spellcasting. He missed most of the details, but understood the basic idea of it. The spell was meant to bring harm.

Not only had this woman attacked Soonyoung and stolen from him, but she was using his power to do harm? Jihoon saw red as he took two steps closer.

She was caught up enough in her spell that she didn't even notice Jihoon come up behind her. He glanced over her shoulder at her spell book. The tile of the page was a mass teleport spell. The page next to it was a spell for slipping through barriers. Impenetrable barriers. The kind that were at Prism. Jihoon’s eyes widened, and before he could stop himself, he brought his elbow up and whacked Soonyoung's teacher on the head. She fell to the ground, knocked out cold. Jihoon grabbed the book, stuffed it into his bag, and ran, pulling out his phone on the way. The police received an anonymous tip that night about a woman in an alley. Who had assaulted a fairy civilian and run off. No explanation, just the facts.

When Jihoon got home, he still had time to kill before his parents got back from work. Soonyoung hadn't so much as rolled over by the time Jihoon got back, so he pulled out the spell book from Soonyoung's teacher.

Jihoon didn't know much more than the basics as far as wizard magic, so while he was intrigued at the thought of maybe breaking Yoongi out of Prism, he knew he wouldn't ever be able to pull something like that off. Joshua, thought, was a wizard.

Jihoon stared at the book for a moment, his inner self struggling with the decision between 'investigate wizard magi’ and 'prepare something nice for Soonyoung for when he wakes up’. It didn't take long for Soonyoung to win, though, because while Jihoon really wanted to help his brother, Yoongi wasn't in immediate distress like Soonyoung would be. The spellbook could wait.

Jihoon knew Soonyoung wouldn't wake up for a while, so Jihoon didn't prepare any food or drinks for him yet. Jihoon froze as he considered thing. He wondered how he would keep his parents from finding a man sleeping in his bed (even though it was completely innocent, his parents would freak out, especially because of the consequences of getting frisky for his species), when he remembered that his parents never really came into his room, and that if he just acted normal, they wouldn't find out. Instead, Jihoon did his best to clean his room a bit so that maybe an air mattress would fit on the floor.

Once he got the air mattress situated, he laid down on it himself. It was comfortable, and Jihoon himself could stand to use a nap. He made sure to put all of his questionable magic books away before he allowed himself to follow Soonyoung into the world of sleep.

~~~~~~~

Jihoon woke up to someone poking his shoulder. He groaned and rolled away from the offensive poking. He was asleep, was that hard to see?

“Jihoon, wake up,” he heard a voice whisper. He didn't even give it a response.

“Jihoon, seriously, your phone alarm is going off. It says it's dinnertime.”

Jihoon summoned up every ounce of energy he had and lifted his arm from the bed momentarily, flapping his hand at the voice. “Shush I'm sleepy.”

The voice giggled, and started poking him with new aggressiveness. “Come on, or I'll go downstairs and eat with your parents without you.”

Jihoon lifted his head and opened one bleary eye. “Soon? Is that you?”

The voice nodded (it wasn't just a voice now, it was Soonyoung) and Jihoon sighed and sat up. “Gimme just a second and we'll go down. Don't expect them to acknowledge your presence, though.”

Soonyoung frowned at this, and Jihoon (still half asleep) reached out and grabbed Soonyoung's cheeks in attempt to pull his lips into a smile. “Stop frowning, you've been doing that too much lately.”

Soonyoung's face lit up into a grin at this, and he put his hands over Jihoon's briefly before shifting his hands to Jihoon's wrists and pulling him up. “Okay, sleepyhead, time to eat.”

Dinner was quiet, and as Jihoon predicted, neither of his parents even looked at Soonyoung. It wasn't a big deal, though, because Soonyoung spent the whole time making goofy faces at Jihoon whenever his parents weren't paying attention (basically all of dinner) and Jihoon had to do his best to hold back laughter and kick Soonyoung under the table without his parents noticing.

After dinner, Jihoon's kitchen duty turned into a competition to see who could make the longest soap suds beard, and evolved into a water war that left both of them soaking wet. Eventually, as they walked back to Jihoon's room, Jihoon spoke up.

“Do you want to spend the night?”

Soonyoung had that same grin on his face that he'd had when Jihoon woke up for dinner, and Jihoon knew the answer before Soonyoung even spoke.

“Sure.”

That night, as they lay on the air mattress together (because Jihoon was a proper host and gave up the comfy mattress for Soonyoung but Soonyoung said that Jihoon was comfier), staring at the fan slowly circling on Jihoon's ceiling, they talked about the events that had lead them there. Soonyoung told Jihoon about growing up by the beach, about learning how to drive when he was way too young because his cousin was way too relaxed about where he put his keys, about how fireflies make great nightlights, and about how much this school was like a conch shell, buzzing with whispers of what was out there, teasing Soonyoung into believing that he could be great.

Soonyoung told him about how he dreamed of having a house on the beach, and a lover to come home to, and kids and pets and the works, and how he had really hoped that his first kiss would be special. And maybe Soonyoung cried a little bit more over it, but Jihoon didn't judge, because he knew that when Jihoon's time came, he would probably cry like a baby too, stolen wishes or not.

The talk about having a family, kids, shifted the conversation towards Jihoon. He'd been raised by his brother, and now his brother was gone. Jihoon's parents were distant, and Jihoon didn't really have anywhere he felt like home. He was scared of having a family, because of how quickly they can fall apart, but he didn't want to be alone anymore, and he wanted a home. And Soonyoung's dream sounded nice to him, a fairy tale ending, and if their world was filled with walking wonders, why couldn't they reach their dreams? 

Eventually they fell asleep, side by side, dead to the world. And they both rested peacefully until morning.


	17. Chapter 17

Soonyoung’s week after that was hectic. That night at Jihoon’s had been the calm before the storm; he had even more homework (if that was possible), more practice, and less time to even sleep. There was less than a month until the showcase, and Soonyoung threw himself into working, not only because he wanted to do well, but also because he needed a distraction. He pretended not to notice how Professor Hyuna was replaced with a different teacher the day after the Incident™, especially since Jihoon was the only one he’d told about it. He was glad for the change, but he didn’t want to know how it had come about.

He’d been too busy to meet up with Jihoon, but they still messaged a lot, Soonyoung mostly asking for advice about mixing, and Jihoon asking for advice on choreography. It was nice, he thought, that they could talk about the stuff they were most passionate about. A lot of the people in Soonyoung’s major focused on only one aspect of the arts, but Soonyoung enjoyed getting a more well-rounded experience. He liked dance, but he liked music and singing, too.

Jihoon was a good critic; Soonyoung never felt judged, but he also got a lot of advice from him. Soonyoung did his best to send Jihoon advice too, but sometimes he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be advising him on. Jihoon was talented.

Soonyoung still didn’t know exactly what Jihoon’s school competition was, but maybe he'd ask Jihoon when it was and try to go to it. Getting to see Jihoon sing, and dance, and perform magic live would be amazing, if the scraps of music that Jihoon had fed him we're anything to go by. 

Soonyoung was happy to notice that his ability to balance school and his personal life was improving, and he was getting good grades while still being active on Toomblr, as well. He used to feel bad at it, either sacrificing Toomblr for homework, or vice versa, but he’d been able to keep up with the blog almost every day recently, despite his growing busy-ness. He could only make two or three posts a day, but quality was always better than quantity, anyways.

Soonyoung was happy to say that they now had 20k followers on their blog. He suspected that it was partially because Hansol and Joshua sometimes made English posts, gaining them followers from America and Europe, but most of the people who followed their blog were from Korea, and a lot of the discourse sent to them had to do with the discrimination in Korea.

The group of them still hadn’t met in person, and Soonyoung was starting to think that they wouldn’t, at least, not until after the showcase when he and Jihoon were less busy. They were already trying to make plans, even though they still had at least a month until a get together was possible. Soonyoung admired their effort.

It was about three weeks until the showcase, when Soonyoung finally finished putting together the entire performance. He was glad he’d finished it with this much time to prepare, because he still needed to practice and memorize everything, and get together a stage outfit. With three weeks of cushion room, he felt less stressed about it than he would have otherwise.

He set up his camcorder with mp3 to record as he ran through the routine for the first time since finishing it. The first run-through was pretty rough, but he still had time. He spent three hours that day, putting together the pieces of the whole, and while he still had a long way to go, he was happy with the progress.

He was excited to send the last video he’d taken that day to Jihoon. Despite the roughness of the practice, having it all put together made Soonyoung proud, and he wanted to share it with Jihoon. He uploaded it onto his computer and sent it right away.

From: naega-hashbrowns  
To: woozu-woozi  
attch2.mp4  
I finished the project, now i just have to practice and perfect it :D

It took Jihoon several minutes to reply, since he had to watch the video, but when he finally did, Soonyoung almost threw his phone in happiness.

From: woozu-woozi  
To: naega-hashbrowns  
Oh my god  
I knew it would be good but not this good?  
And you say this isn’t perfect yet?

From: naega-hashbrowns  
To: woozu-woozi  
Don’t over exaggerate! It’s still pretty rough, this was after three hours of practice. I still have a long way to go, and I’m sure you know it XD

From: woozu-woozi  
To: naega-hashbrowns  
I can tell you still need a bit of practice, but don’t dismiss how awesome you are as it is. The mixing of the song is really well done, and your moves are pretty on point. I wish I could see it in person to get the full effect of the fairy sphere

From: naega-hashbrowns  
To: woozu-woozi  
You should come to the performance! It’s at MU on December 12th. It’s the musical showcase thing, it’s in the Performing Arts Hall

Woozi’s chat had a little ‘...’ bubble for several minutes after that, but after a while Soonyoung felt kind of gross from practice, so he put his phone away and went to take a shower. He could respond to Jihoon’s message when he finally smelled human again. He shot off a quick message to Jihoon to let him know, and then left his phone on the table.

When he finally picked up his phone again, he’d showered and eaten. It had been about 45 minutes, so he wasn’t sure if Jihoon would still be on, but Soonyoung saw that he’d messaged back. He opened the message, hoping to see Jihoon replying with a ‘Sure I’d love to come see your performance in person’ but unfortunately, that wasn’t what he got.

From: woozu-woozi  
To: naega-hashbrowns  
I’m performing my piece that day too, what a coincidence. Hopefully I’ll get to see yours

Soonyoung frowned. The high school performance thing would be on the same day as his? That was double bad, now Soonyoung couldn’t watch Jihoon’s performance either. Maybe he’d ask DK to go and film it for him. That’d be cool.

He sent a goodnight message to Jihoon, and hoped the boy would show Soonyoung his own piece sometime. Even though they’d met in person now, Jihoon never sent videos of himself singing or dancing. That hadn’t changed, Jihoon still only sent him the basic tracks.

He went to bed that night hoping and praying that his own showcase would go well. And that Jihoon’s would as well. After the whole Yoongi thing, Jihoon had probably been stressed and hadn’t worked on his piece as much as he normally would have. Soonyoung knew that Jihoon would pull it off, but he hoped the younger boy wouldn’t have any more stress than what was necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, and not just for one chapter, either :) I have several chapters written now, and I have the rest of the story outlined so no worries! No more six month breaks :)
> 
> Please understand that life can be a bxxxx sometimes, and that the reason I left everyone hanging was because I really didn't have time to write. This story was something I started in my free time as a fun project, and until last month, I had no writing schedule or outlines for any of my stories. I do now.
> 
> I won't have as much time to reply to comments anymore either, but I will definitely read them all! I appreciate all the people who have left me comments in the past, and all those who will continue to do so :)
> 
> I'm also trying (trying and failing lmao) to make a Tumblr blog where I post my stuff. The Tumblr is @jimins-left-shoulder . It only has up to chapter 7 of this story (titled Wishes) but I will hopefully get it up to date soon :) thank you so much! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Love u guys!


	18. Chapter 18

Jihoon was trying so hard to focus on his project. It was almost complete, and Soonyoung had finished his, so Jihoon knew that he should have it finished by now. It didn’t help that he now knew that Soonyoung would be in the same competition. He wanted to do well, to impress Soonyoung, to surprise him, but the one visitation day a year for Yoongi was getting closer, and a mostly done project was good enough for now, right? He still had a whole month.

He envied his friends, he really did. They managed to have a social life, keep up with school, and have good family relationships all at the same time. Jihoon had taken two days off at work, his project wasn’t finished, he still had homework, Yoongi was in prison, and he was too busy to meet up with Seventeen, though he knew they were trying to plan a get-together.

He felt stressed, to say the least. It was a lot to balance, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it up much longer. At least until the showcase, he kept telling himself. Hang on until then.

In the meantime, Jihoon had been working on the ancient spellbook, throwing everything into it, and he could see the quality of his spells increasing. He wondered if Yoongi would be proud of him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to talk about it if he visited him, because all conversations were monitored, but maybe he’d get Yoongi out someday and they could create spells together.

As the days grew closer to the visitation, Jihoon got more and more anxious. He knew his parents would be out of town, giving talks at a science convention on Jeju Island, so he’d be able to visit Yoongi without worrying about sneaking out or getting caught. But would Yoongi even be glad to see him?

Of course he would, Jihoon told himself. He didn’t know that Jihoon was the one with the spellbook. He had no reason to be upset at Jihoon. He’d be glad to see him, he would. And eventually, the day came. Jihoon shot off a quick message to Soonyoung, letting him know he would be gone for the day. He threw on his clothes, and left the house.

The Prism wasn’t too far away, two hours by train, and Jihoon spent the whole time listening to his brother’s old playlist. It had a lot of hip hop, which wasn’t really his style, but it made him nostalgic. His foot tapped against the floor restlessly, trying to burn his nervous energy before the big moment came.

From the time he got off the train to the time he entered the Prism, he was lost in an anxious haze. He barely remembered showing the security guards his ID, getting fingerprints taken, and going through a metal detector and having to strip his clothes and put on cotton sweats and a t-shirt, provided by the Prism. Eventually, he found himself sitting in a white room, the chairs and table nailed to the floors. A door from across the room opened, and there he was.

Yoongi was wearing clothes like Jihoon’s, and his hands were encased in giant metal boxes, chained together. There were more chains around his neck and ankles, and he had a dead look in his eyes. When he saw Jihoon, that look didn’t change.

The guard next to him led him to the chair across from Jihoon, and pushed Yoongi into it, while Yoongi was like a sack of potatoes in his grip. The guard turned to Jihoon. “You have fifteen minutes. The room is monitored, and there are guards at every exit.” Jihoon nodded, and the man left.

Jihoon turned to Yoongi. “Yoongi, it’s me, Jihoon? I came to see you?”

Yoongi didn't move, didn’t blink. He just stared at a spot on the table, not talking. Jihoon reached across the table to touch Yoongi’s arm, to try and get a reaction, but Yoongi still sat quietly. Jihoon could physically feel his heart start to beat faster, start to break. “Yoongi, it’s me, Ji-ji?”

No response. Jihoon, in an awesome display of self control, help back his tears and squared his shoulders. “Well, if you’re not going to talk, then I will. Even if you can’t hear me.” Jihoon’s heart was breaking again, into halves, fourths, eighths. “I’m going to college part time right now, even though I’m only 17. If I do well at a music competition there, I can go full time, without having to finish high school. I’m working at a magic tattoo shop. You’d like it there, we could get sleeves done like you always wanted, to cover your scars.

I also made friends this year. You always wanted me to make friends. I have a bunch of them now, twelve. They all go to school with me. And my best friend, Yoongi, I know you’d like him. His name is Soonyoung. He’s really nice and he loves music and dancing just as much as I do. You should meet him someday, I know you’ll meet him someday. And you’ll be able to see the performance I made for school. I remember you’d always come to my dance and piano recitals when I was in middle school. We could go to Sunbucks afterwards, too.”

He’d been hoping and praying that Yoongi would snap out of his trance by the time Jihoon finished talking, but he was like a living corpse. Jihoon reached forward and took Yoongi’s wrist into his hand, if only to feel his pulse, feel his warmth, to make sure he was really alive.

Jihoon held onto him for several minutes, before he couldn’t take it anymore. He dropped Yoongi’s wrist like it was burning him, and stood up like lightning. He ran out of the room, past the guards. The tears came then, and Jihoon didn’t have the control to stop them. He didn’t even stop to change into his clothes, rushing out of the building after grabbing his wallet and phone.

The ride home was lonely. Jihoon refused to look at his phone. He knew he must look a wreck, or like a prisoner himself; he was dressed in all white, had tear stains on his cheeks, and his shoes weren’t even tied. It took him most of the trip home to calm down, and by the time he got off, he felt numb.

He sat at his desk to do homework. His mind was like static, but he needed something to do. He didn’t move from his spot for hours, throwing his all into school, and after that, into his project. The loving passion that used to ring through his piece now sounded like a funeral march, his joyful dance looking somber as he tried to practice. Eventually, after he had sweat running down his entire body and his mind was quiet again, he walked to the kitchen to get food.

Fuel up, start again. Over and over, Jihoon practiced, until his motions were so repetitive he couldn’t even tell if he was getting it right anymore, and he fell to the floor, exhausted. Sleep would be next, but he needed to shower first. But sleep sounded so good, as he lay on the carpet on his floor, and he found himself drifting off while his project piece played in the background.


	19. Chapter 19

Soonyoung knew that Jihoon was working himself to death. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but it was some sixth sense that told him he needed to get Jihoon out of the house for a while. It took some convincing, and Soonyoung had to offer to pay, but he was able to get Jihoon to agree to lunch at Sunbucks.

It was much less dramatic than the last time they’d met here. Fae had still given them a private room, the same one from last time, and Soonyoung was glad to be able to hang out with Jihoon, just the two of them, without any other customers making noise and being distracting.

It was especially nice, because Jihoon couldn’t run away from finally answering Soonyoung’s questions about how he was really doing.

Not to say he didn’t try. Making small talk about how expensive cafe food was (Fae had fed them for free), or how the weather was nice (It was raining outside), or asking how Soonyoung’s project was going (Soonyoung had already told Jihoon it was finished). Soonyoung patiently waited it out, until Jihoon finally ran out of conversation starters and looked down at his food.

“You don’t have to tell me what’s up if you don’t want to, I won’t force it. But last time you tried to hide something you ended up a mess.”

Soonyoung wondered if he’d been too honest, but he’d always been a fan of the truth, and he hoped that Jihoon would feel the same and finally tell him why he was working himself ragged.

Jihoon looked down at their food, and Soonyoung held his breath. Eventually Jihoon met his eyes again, and Soonyoung did his best to look strong and patient. “I went to see Yoongi in Prism. I don’t know, he was so different, so lifeless. And I’m so behind on my project, I’ve been so distracted. I don’t feel as upset about it anymore, it’s not like there’s much I can do right now, but it’s easier to work than to sulk. I don’t know, I just can’t focus on my work but I can’t just NOT work either.”

Soonyoung could understand. He’d been like that when he was younger, as well. “It’s good that you’re working, but don’t take it too far. I don’t want you getting hurt or getting sick.”

Jihoon nodded. “I don’t want to get sick or hurt either. Anyways, even though I have more to stress about, I think I’m getting better at handling stress, so don’t worry. I think I just needed to cry and spend some time alone. I never really got to do that when he first went to Prism, so it’s been a long time coming. I feel a lot better about everything now. And if I get too caught up in it, you’ll take me out to eat again, right?” Jihoon grinned innocently at Soonyoung as he said that, and Soonyoung tried not to choke.

“Of course, anytime you need it.” Soonyoung felt so proud at his ability to speak that sentence without his voice wavering. Jihoon obviously didn’t notice how his last sentence had sounded. Did Jihoon think this was a date? Did taking Jihoon out equal going on a date?

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay next time to make up for it. Sorry I’ve been so distracted, I haven’t been able to talk to you as much lately. Now that you’ve finished your project, what have you been up to?”

Soonyoung swallowed, his tongue felt thick in his mouth. A change of topic would be a good distraction, yes. He should answer the question. “Practicing, mostly. A lot of homework. It sucks that midterms are the same week as the showcase. I wish midterms didn’t exist, honestly. Studying his hard.”

Jihoon nodded wholeheartedly. “When are your midterms? In relation to the showcase. You won’t have any on the same day, right?”

Soonyoung laughed. “I sure hope not. Unless the schedule changes, I have one the Friday before the showcase, two on the Monday before, and three on the Tuesday. The showcase is on Thursday, so I’ll have all of Wednesday to rest up and or practice.”

“You better rest! Stretch too. Drink water. Maybe some light cardio. You can’t say anything about me getting sick or hurt if you do something to yourself right before the concert.” Jihoon looked stern, and Soonyoung wanted to laugh. He knew Jihoon was serious, but he sounded like Soonyoung’s mother.

Soonyoung felt bold. “You sound like my mom. Maybe if you’re worried about me overdoing it you’ll take me out and pay like you said just a minute ago. That way I can also make sure you don’t overdo it either. Don’t you have a competition the same day I do?”

Jihoon’s face twisted a bit at the mention of the competition, but a moment later he was laughing. Laughing to the point he almost looked like he was going to cry. His hands came together in front of his face in a clapping motion, and Soonyoung saw the pointy chopsticks in his hand.

“Put down those chopsticks, Jihoon. You’re flailing around, you’ll stab yourself.” Soonyoung leaned across the table and tried to take them away. Jihoon literally looked like he was about to poke his eye out, but he leaned away from Soonyoung. Jihoon continued to laugh, and while Soonyoung found it adorable, the chopsticks looked like weapons in Jihoon’s hands.

“I’m serious, what did we just say about getting hurt? Come on! Why are you even laughing right now?” Soonyoung scowled, and Jihoon finally slowed his laughing down, and set the chopsticks on the table.

“Sorry, sorry, it’s nothing. We should do it. The day before the competition, let’s get our raincheck from Waffle Haus. We can go for dinner. I’ll pay. It’s a plan. It’s a date.” Jihoon broke out into a grin again, and Soonyoung wondered if he was going to start laughing. Maybe this was all a joke?

But Jihoon wasn’t grinning like it was a joke, he was looking at Soonyoung like he was the world, and Soonyoung wondered if he was looking at Jihoon the same way. Probably.

“It’s a date,” Soonyoung said softly. Jihoon’s eyes almost disappeared behind his smile, and Soonyoung couldn’t help but mimic it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope u enjoyed the fluff
> 
>  
> 
> Bcuz there's not going to be any for the next couple of chapters
> 
>  
> 
> Get ready for the mother of all angst MUAHAHAHAHA


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAKE NOTE OF THE UPDATED TAGS. ALL WARNINGS APPLY.

Jihoon was screaming into his pillow. His pink, fluffy, sparkly pillow. And he didn’t even mind.

To be honest, he had no clue where last night had come from. He’d spent almost two weeks holed up after visiting Yoongi, but after meeting with Soonyoung, it was like the rut he’d fallen into had simply disappeared.

No, it hadn’t just disappeared, it’d reversed. Jihoon had gone home that night and finished the song for the performance, completed it. He’d spent two hours on the choreo, and he knew he’d finish it in another day or two at this rate. He hadn’t been able to sleep, to elated from their semi-date, and he’d gotten a large chunk of homework done as well.

He knew this high wouldn’t last forever, so the next morning (which was luckily a Saturday) he went straight to the dance studios at MU to practice without distractions.

Instead of running through the same two eight-counts for hours on end, refusing to take a break, he spent the day trying to smooth out the transitions and practicing the rough spots a couple of times, but also trying to relax while he danced. After the third run through, with almost no mistakes, he could tell how tense he must have been before.

Now, if he could stay stress free until the competition, that would be great. He headed home around noon, eating some of the snacks he’d packed but trying not to ruin the lunch he’d left at the house. He wondered if his parents would be there; sometimes they’d come home for lunch on Saturdays, but it was rare. Jihoon felt amazing enough he knew he’d be able to stomach lunch with them if they were.

His parents were indeed home, but a happy lunch wasn’t what they had prepared. Jihoon could feel the somber mood as soon as he opened the door, and all the good vibes he’d been cherishing were ripped to shreds as he saw his father coming down the stairs with a box of Yoongi’s stuff.

“What are you doing, Dad? That’s Yoongi’s stuff.” Jihoon’s voice was unnaturally steady as he spoke. Jihoon’s father looked at him, but his eyes didn’t hold any emotion. Jihoon felt his stomach drop out of his body, felt like he’d just reached the drop on a tall roller coaster.

“Jihoon, it’s time to move on. We’ve kept his stuff for years, but I think it’s making it hard for you to become independent. I know you still sleep in his bed sometimes.” Jihoon could feel his father’s icy stare piercing his lungs. It was hard to breathe.

“Yeah, but can I go through it first? We don’t have to get rid of everything, right?” Jihoon cursed his throat, his vocal chords, for betraying him. His steady voice had been replaced with one filled with desperation, and Jihoon hated it.

Jiho watched Jihoon for a moment, before sighing. “We’ve moved most of it out already. You can go through whatever’s left, but the rest is already gone. You have half an hour before the truck gets back for this second load.”

Jihoon sprinted up the stairs, body slamming the door to Yoongi’s room in his haste. He froze as soon as he scanned the room, though. Yoongi’s bed had been stripped of its covers, leaving the simple mattress naked on the frame. Yoongi’s posters from his favorite music groups had been taken down from the walls, leaving behind the dull cream colored walls littered with blue tac. The closet was emptied of clothes.

Jihoon ran to the desk in the corner, praying that his brother’s notebooks would still be there. Jihoon had several in his room already, the ones related to spellwork, but he’d never touched Yoongi’s personal diaries. Jihoon knew Yoongi had struggled with depression, and Jihoon wondered if he had it himself, but Yoongi had always confided in those diaries like they were his best friend. Jihoon refused to read them, but he’d be devastated if they were gone.

They were there. Jihoon felt a weight lift off his chest as he pulled them out, stacking all six of them on top of the desk, counting them twice to make sure they were all there.

Jihoon turned back to the drawers in the desk. He’d only payed attention to the notebooks when he’d first had to look through Yoongi’s things, back when he’d found the Spellbook that started everything. Mostly there were pens and pencils, and a couple of flash drives. Jihoon pulled those out as well.

In the back of the bottom drawer, there was a small metal box. Jihoon noted how it was worn around the corners, as if Yoongi had constantly taken it in and out of the drawer, had held it a lot. It must have some significance. Jihoon took it out as well.

There wasn’t much left in the room. A pair of shoes were under the bed, probably hadn’t been spotted yet. A couple of pencils were on the nightstand, and an empty glass of water from the last time Jihoon had slept in Yoongi’s bed. Jihoon stacked the flash drives and box on top of the diaries, and carried them back to his room.

He put the diaries under his bed, with the rest of his books. He pulled his computer off his desk, and settled down on his bed with the flash drives first. He didn’t know if it would have journal entries, or spells, but he was determined to find out. If he couldn’t have Yoongi’s room back, his stuff, he would hold on to these like a lifeline.

There were three, and each of them had a date on them. He decided to look at them in order. The first one was from about a year before the incident. Jihoon took a steadying breath, and plugged it in.

Jihoon was surprised to find audio files. He grabbed his headphones from his nightstand, wondering what they could be. They were dated, just like the flash drives themselves. He clicked on the first one.

“Hello, this is Yoongi. I’m an imp, and this is kind of an intro to my life and current project.”

Jihoon slammed his hand down on the pause button. He looked around his room, as if his parents might be watching, though he knew it was ridiculous. Yoongi had always been secretive, mostly with what he called ‘adult stuff’, and Jihoon wondered what might be on the tape. He pressed play again.

“My parents are pretty famous. Everyone knows them. Or, knows of them. They’re not home often. I have a younger brother, too. He’s the only one in the family that I really care about. I don’t want him to grow up the way I did.

Anyways, the project I’m working on right now. I’m not going to say what it is, but if I can do it, it’ll change the way people see imps. It’ll fix the system, and my brother will be able to go to school with other people like a normal being. I’ll be able to get a job, maybe go to college. If I can do this, it’d open a lot of doors for Imp Inclusion.

Well, if I talk more I might spoil it, and it won’t be an amazing surprise if I spoil it, right? I’m hoping to document my progress, and maybe I’ll be able to show this little audio journal to the world someday. Anyways, Yoongi out.”

Jihoon felt raw, but he clicked the next clip anyways. And the next, and the next. All documenting his brother’s happiness and passion. He never stated what the project was, but there was always this hopeful undertone to it, like he believed he could change the world. And he could, Jihoon knew he could.

When Jihoon clicked to the last one, he almost missed the date. The day of the incident. Jihoon sucked in a breath, and pressed play. Yoongi’s voice came out in a whisper.

“Okay, I’m really scared right now. My book is missing. I put it in the top drawer of my desk last night, and now it’s gone. If I can’t find it, if someone else finds it, this is all over. They’ll find some way to tie it back to me and they’ll take away my family. I can’t leave my brother, I can’t leave him until I finish this. I have to finish this. Oh my god, the book is missing.”

Jihoon knew he was crying, but he couldn’t feel the tears on his face, too distracted by Yoongi’s panicked voice to notice his own breath hitching and his own chest heaving. He could hear through the tape, Yoongi rummaging in his drawer. He heard a hollow thump, the sound of metal. The box?

“Dammit. I promised I wouldn’t open this again. This is different, but I promised-”

Jihoon could hear Yoongi crying. Yoongi was CRYING, there was something about the box. Jihoon picked it up, rattling it. It sounded like something metal inside. There wasn’t a key, but Jihoon knew how to open boxes with magic.

He heard Yoongi hiss, and then a faint dripping noise. And then a loud rushing noise. And then the sound cut off, and the tape ended. What was in the box?

Jihoon pulled his own notebook to himself, drawing a circle and putting the box inside, tapping into his magic and popping it open. He was not expecting razor blades to come out.

Jihoon threw the box across the room, his hands clenching his hair as he himself began to panic the same way he’d just heard from Yoongi. There were RAZOR BLADES on the floor, all over the floor, there was a box and there were blades and Yoongi had done something bad to himself, must have done it a lot.

Jihoon was shaking, but he stood up anyways. He put the blades back in the box, and re-sealed it with magic. He grabbed his suitcase from his closet, dusty, and started shoving all of Yoongi’s diaries and flash drives in it. He grabbed the one jacket of Yoongi’s that he’d kept, and a couple of outfits. He pulled out the spellbook, the Witch book, and all of Yoongi’s and his own notebooks and put them in as well. Anything incriminating. Jihoon packed it all.

He reached for his phone. Was he really going to call Soonyoung? Hadn’t he just told Soonyoung yesterday that he was doing fine? How pathetic, he couldn’t even be okay for one day? He’d literally spent so much time being upset, being fucking DEPRESSED, and he couldn’t have more than one good day in a row? He pushed past his thoughts and hit the dial button. It took two rings, and he could hear Soonyoung’s voice on the other side. 

“Jihoon? What’s up?”

Jihoon tried to keep the tears out of his voice. He didn’t want to stay home tonight, not when Yoongi’s room was right there, not when his parents were right there. He didn’t know how to ask his question, though. He breathed out, and let his mouth speak for him, not even thinking about what he said.

“Hey Soonyoung, can you take me out again tonight? And maybe tomorrow night? Just for a day or two?”

He heard Soonyoung’s breath catch when he heard Jihoon’s voice, scratchy and full of emotions. Jihoon wished his voice could be normal. He wished he could be normal, that his family could be normal.

“Sure, Jihoon. Do you want to come over for a bit? Just for a day or two? I can order takeout.”

Jihoon gasped in relief, felt more tears join the ones already on his face. He was a mess, but Soonyoung knew what he meant. Soonyoung understood. “Please?”

“I’ll text you my address. Or do you want me to pick you up?”

“Pick me up, maybe? I have a suitcase. I have a suitcase.” He was repeating himself. Stupid.

“I’ll be there in ten. I don’t live far. I’ll text you when I’m outside.”

“Don’t bother, I’ll be waiting outside. Please hurry.” Jihoon sounded desperate, the same tone he’d had with his father earlier. Deja vu. Repeating itself. Jihoon had repeated himself again.

Jihoon didn’t remember much past that, just that he’d received some strange looks from the neighbors, standing by the road in the middle of the afternoon with a suitcase, parents having apparently left for work again. Jihoon wondered if his parents would ask around for him. He wondered what the neighbors would tell them.

Soonyoung picked him up in record time. Jihoon didn’t remember Soonyoung mentioning that he had a car. He wondered who Soonyoung might have borrowed the car from. Jihoon struggled putting the heavy suitcase in the trunk, too out of it to focus on the task. He’d spaced out for most of the ride home, though he knew Soonyoung deserved an explanation.

Eventually Jihoon found his voice. “I found some of my brother’s stuff today.” He wasn’t sure how much he could say, without going into another panic attack. He decided to play it safe. “It was bad. I want to forget, but I also want to know everything. I don’t know. I say that a lot, but I just don’t know. I’m sorry I’m such a wreck.”

“Don’t be sorry. Everyone deserves a good breakdown every now and then. You’ve been holding on to a lot of this stuff for years, you’ve been strong, I’m sure. It’s okay, Jihoon.”

Soonyoung smiled at him, but Jihoon knew it was a sad one. Jihoon just wanted to sleep. He wouldn’t have to remember, or forget. He tried to smile back, but he couldn’t. He grimaced, and wrung his hands together. He sat in silence for the rest of the ride.

Jihoon knew Soonyoung lived at the dorms, but he prayed to whatever deity was out there that Soonyoung didn’t have a roommate. He really didn’t want to accidentally have a panic attack in front of any more people than he had to.

Just his luck. He remembered at one point Soonyoung mentioning Seungcheol and Wonwoo in reference to the dorms, and Jihoon was glad to find out that at least one of them was living down the hall. Wonwoo roomed with a couple of guys, but Seungcheol was Soonyoung’s roommate.

He wasn’t there when they entered the dorm, much to Jihoon’s relief. Soonyoung helped him set his suitcase down, and Soonyoung lead Jihoon to the bed.

“You look like you’re going to pass out. We can talk when you wake up, but for now, you need to sleep. Okay?”

Jihoon hummed, climbing under the covers and inhaling Soonyoung’s scent from the pillow. Sleep was just what he needed.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to post the last of my pre-written chapters, posting schedules be damned. I'm not writing more for this story until things at home are resolved, but this way you won't be left hanging. I'll get back from hiatus when I get back from hiatus

Soonyoung certainly hadn’t been expecting this when Jihoon had called. A goodnight call, or maybe an ‘I miss you’ call. But he didn’t get either of those, he got a tearful Jihoon asking if Soonyoung could pick him up for a couple of days.

Soonyoung didn’t hesitate. Jihoon had let him sleep at his house after the incident with his teacher, it was only right that he do the same now that Jihoon was having a hard time.

Jihoon was sleeping now. When Soonyoung had picked him up, Jihoon had looked as if he’d seen a ghost. He was paler than ever, and he had tear tracks on his cheeks. He’d stayed quiet for most of the ride, but he didn’t have to say anything. Soonyoung could feel him hurting.

Seungcheol would be getting home soon. He’d told Soonyoung that he’d be back around eight, and it was 7:45 now. Jihoon hadn’t given Soonyoung much of an explanation, and he wondered what he should say to Seungcheol when he got back.

Soonyoung heated up some tea, and flipped through his phone for a bit. The group chat was full of messages, planning the meeting. A handful of people’s classes had been cancelled this week, and they were proposing moving the meeting up on the calendar.

Tomorrow night… Soonyoung wondered if Jihoon would be up to going. He decided against posting in the group chat just yet; he didn’t want to commit to it if Jihoon would be laying in bed, miserable the whole time. He’d ask him in the morning.

He heard the electronic card key beep, and Seungcheol was in the room. He opened his mouth to greet Soonyoung, but quickly shut his mouth when Soonyoung made a shushing noise. Soonyoung beckoned him closer.

“Jihoon is here, he’s asleep. I don’t want him to wake up just yet,” Soonyoung explained. Seungcheol’s brow furrowed, but he nodded.

“Why is he here? Is something wrong?” Seungcheol asked.

“I’m not sure exactly, but he seemed pretty upset. He’s had some family stuff happening, and he was there for me a while back, I want to do this for him. He might stay for a day or two.”

A look of understanding crossed Seungcheol’s face, and he nodded. “Okay, I’ll stay out of the way if you need me to, but if you need anything else, let me know.”

“Thanks, man. I’ll keep you updated, but for now, I’m going to try and sleep. I don’t know how he’ll be in the morning, and we all have school regardless. Goodnight,” he said, standing up and stretching.

That night, he slept relatively well considering the fact he was on the couch. He didn’t wake up with any aches or pains, and he’d slept for… oh… three hours.

It was five am, no one reasonable would be up at this hour. Soonyoung sighed and tried to go back to sleep. He lay for about five minutes, perfectly still with his eyes shut. No luck.

He got up and walked to the small kitchen area. It was attached to the living room, so it only took a few steps. It was mostly just a counter with two cabinets, a sink, and a spot for a mini fridge. After pouring himself some water, he looked out the window over the sink.

There wasn’t much to see. Usually, they kept a curtain over the window, since the sight was so dull. The red bricks that made up the next dorm building over were in Soonyoung’s direct line of sight, but besides that, it was too dark to see much. He sighed, and went back to the couch.

He sat in silence for a while, continuing to stare out the window, before he heard shuffling in his room. He looked up just as Jihoon emerged, wrapped in Soonyoung’s duvet. They exchanged a brief smile, before Jihoon waddled forward and plopped down beside him.

“You’re up early,” Jihoon commented,

“You are too,” Soonyoung replied. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Jihoon hummed, and slumped back. “Nightmares. You?”

“Insomnia. It happens sometimes.”

They enjoyed the quiet morning, and around six o’clock, Soonyoung got up to start the coffeemaker. Jihoon followed behind him, sitting at the small kitchen table that was halfway into the living room.

“We have eggs and toast, and ramen. Not much else, though. Want some?” Soonyoung offered.

“Eggs are fine, with toast. Thank you.”

Soonyoung pulled the carton out, and got out a frying pan. He also pulled out a small plug-in stove from on top of the refrigerator. He technically wasn’t supposed to have a stove top in the dorm, but he hadn’t been called out by the RA and the term was almost over, so he didn’t really care anymore.

“Do you have classes this morning? Seungcheol and I do, so he’ll be getting up around 7 or 8,” Soonyoung explained.

Jihoon nodded. “I don’t have classes until ten, but I needed to go to the library today, I’ll go soon. Sorry for crashing on your bed.”

“Don’t apologize, I don’t mind. You did the same for me, when I had that thing with my teacher. And I want to be there for you,” Soonyoung told him, looking him dead in the eye. “So please, don’t say you’re sorry.”

Jihoon nodded, and took a sip of the now-ready coffee. He was quiet for a minute, before he spoke up. “My parents are getting rid of some of my brother’s things. They let me look through some of it, see if there was anything I wanted to keep. Some of it they threw out without even asking me. But I found… I found his razors.”

Soonyoung was a bit confused. “For shaving?” he asked, sitting down across from Jihoon and handing him a plate.

Jihoon shook his head, and traced a finger across his wrist. Soonyoung’s breath caught in his throat.

“I’m so sorry, Jihoon. That must be awful. Do you want to talk about it?” Soonyoung asked.

Jihoon shook his head and grabbed a fork, stabbing into his eggs. “I don’t really have words to talk about it right now. I think I need some time to come to terms with it, maybe then.”

Soonyoung nodded, and they ate in silence. Jihoon was looking out the window, much like Soonyoung had been earlier. They finished eating and cleaning up around six, and then Soonyoung started talking again.

“One week until midterms, two until the showcase. Then we’re free for a couple of weeks. Are you excited?”

Jihoon smiled. “I am, I can’t wait to meet everyone in person. I wish it wasn’t midterms next week, we could meet sooner.”

“Do you have any plans tonight?” Soonyoung asked, remembering the group chat.

“No, I mean, I could always spend my time studying, but I don’t have anything going on tonight. Why?”

Soonyoung grinned and wiggled his eyebrows up and down. “Check the group chat. I think you’ll be excited when you see what they’ve been discussing lately.”

Jihoon looked at him, untrusting, but pulled out his phone anyways. Soonyoung watched the exact moment of understanding, the second that Jihoon realized that they could meet up tonight.

“Oh my god, Soonyoung! Tonight? Really? Oh my god,” Jihoon kept repeating himself, but he looked absolutely elated. Tonight was the night, and the timing couldn't be better.

**Author's Note:**

> im not abandoning my other works, the ones on hiatus. im just writing what i want to read, and trying to enjoy my life. plz be kind to me
> 
> https://ko-fi.com/joybirdthethird


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